Endnote 5 – Bah, Humbug!

Thus, the aria “He was despised” is based upon Isaiah 53:3, “He is despised.” The same number contains the words “he hid not his face from shame and spitting,” whereas Isaiah 50:6 really says “I did not hide my face from shame and spitting.” Again, in the recitative “All they that see him laugh him to scorn,” Jennens modified Psalm 22:8 (English 22:7), which reads “All they that see me mock at me.” When the tenor sings “Thy rebuke hath broken his heart, he is full of heaviness; he looked for some to have pity on him, but…neither found he any to comfort him,” the biblical original of Psalm 69:21 has the first person: “my, I, me” for “his, he, him.” The same is true for the tenor aria “Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow” (Lamentations 1:2) and for the soprano’s “But thou didst not leave his soul in hell” (Psalm 16:10).