The greatJewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn advised his contemporaries around 1790: "Choose a psalm that resonateswith your emotional state right now." In 1844, his grandson, FelixMendelssohn, set Psalm 91: 11-12 to music immediately after learning that thePrussian King Frederick William IV narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. Composedfor the Cathedral Choir of Berlin, Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen isscored for eight-part a capella chorus, that blends elements from polyphonicLutheran church music and German folk songs with the antiphonal, responsorialstyle of earlier Italian liturgical music.

During the same time period, Mendelssohn was coming to a final decision about which Bible passages would form the storyline of his second oratorio, Elijah, which was to premiere in 1846 in Birmingham, England. To represent God’s provision by sparing Elijah from God’s judgment, Mendelssohn inserted Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen as a “double quartet.” In so doing, Mendelssohn made a connection between the account of Elijah alone in the wilderness and a parallel passage found in the New Testament that describes Jesus in similar straits and receiving the attention of angels, thus synthesizing the Old and New Testaments together to fashion one thoughtful narrative of hope.

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