Heman the Ezrahite ( he, ''Hēmān hā’Ezrāḥī'') is the author of Psalm 88 in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' B. Bava Batra connects the name Heman to the semitic root אמנ meaning "trusted," while CYDA speculates it is from נתן and means "given." It is found sixteen times in the
New International Version
The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The ''NIV'' was created as a modern translation, by Bible scholars using the earliest a ...
of the Bible. The ethnonym is sometimes understood to mean "of Zerah," with the
aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez .
These lett ...
prosthetic, to mean "of Ezrah," or, alternatively, to mean "the native" who founded a tradition of bards.
Heman the Ezrahite may be one of the three
Levites
Levites (or Levi) (, he, ''Lǝvīyyīm'') are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah. The surname ''Halevi'', which consists of the Hebrew de ...
assigned by King
David
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
to be ministers of music. This Heman was a grandson of
Samuel
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bib ...
the prophet who went on to become King David's seer and to have fourteen sons and three daughters.
Works
Psalm 88 seems to have been written in a state of despair. According to Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, Psalm 88 is “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness.”
Nevertheless, the appeal to God in Psalm 88 begins with the following expression of faith: "O Yahweh, God of my salvation!" Three times (vss. 1, 9, and 13) the psalmist calls on the name of Yahweh. The psalmist accompanies each invocation with a reference to his perseverance in prayer. For example, in verse nine he declares, "I call on you, O Yahweh, every day."
Madeleine L'Engle has a poem called "Herman the Ezragite: Psalm 88:18" in her collection ''A Cry Like a Bell.'' In it, she imagines the feelings of Heman (Herman) that led him to write Psalm 88.