This evening I was directing my church choir in a rehearsal of Millard Walker’s setting of Psalm 121 (Brodt Music Company 1966).  The text is the metrical version of the psalm from the Bay Psalm Book (1640).  The Bay Psalm text is

 

1  I to the hills lift up mine eyes,

        from whence shall come mine aid.

  2  Mine help doth from Jehovah come,

        which heav'n and earth hath made.

 

  3  He will not let thy foot be moved,

        nor slumber; that thee keeps.

  4  Lo he that keepth Israel,

        he slumbreth not, nor sleeps.

 

  5  The Lord thy keeper is, the Lord

        on thy right hand the shade.

  6  The sun by day, nor moon by night,

        shall thee by stroke invade.

 

  7  The Lord will keep thee from all ill:

        thy soul he keeps alway,

  8  Thy going out, and thy in come

        the Lord keeps now and aye.

                                http://www.cgmusic.com/workshop/baypsalm_frame.htm

 

It has been observed that the translators and versifiers of the Psalter did not include poetry among their virtues, sacrificing grammar and sometimes sense on the altar of meter and rhyme.  I suggest comparing this with a good modern translation, my choices being the New Revised Standard Version and The New Jerusalem Bible.

 

What struck me this evening, though, was verse 3.

 

3  He will not let thy foot be moved,

        nor slumber; that thee keeps.

 

I have and still do maintain firmly that there is no grammatical evidence to support the claim that “that” used at the beginning of a relative clause is a pronoun and not simply a subordinating conjunction.  Combine a grammarian with a choir director, however, and the thought interrupts maintaining the beat that this instance of relative “that” feels very pronominal, and not just in the impressionistic sense that Craig and others have expressed.  This is the only instance of relative “that” I have encountered where “that” must be stressed.  We rarely stress “that” as a subordinating conjunction, whether in a relative or a content clause.  Here, however, the meter, so slavishly followed by the writers, requires us to stress “that.”  It’s an iambic line, and “that” bears the ictus of the second foot.  This also appears to be a case of a headless relative clause, as in “Who laughs last laughs best,” and headless relatives must begin with pronouns, usually wh-words.  Of course, if “that” is a pronoun in this case, and it does look like one, it violates the notion that “that” refers only to non-humans.  Of course, “which” in v. 2 refers to Jehovah, not a human, but still a person, but Early Modern English did allow that use of “which.”  Those of you familiar with older editions of the King James Version remember “Our Father which art in heaven” as the opening of the Lord’s Prayer.

 

So there are two strong, grammatical reasons for considering this instance of relative “that” to be a pronoun.  It’s stressed (the subordinator “that” never is), and it introduces a headless relative, which only pronouns can do.

 

Now, is this a quirk of bad Puritan poetry?  Even if so, the construction had to feel possible or even these violators of grammar and sense wouldn’t have used it.

 

This instance demonstrates that there is a case in a strange bit of mid-17^th c. verse of relative “that” used in a way that can only be considered a pronoun.  The evidence in Late Modern English remains overwhelming that we no longer do so, if English speakers ever actually did.

 

But it’s a delightful quandary.  It simply bears out the truth of Jim McCawley’s sense that language never ceases to fascinate.

 

Herb