The 1662 Book of Common Prayer translates Psalm 122 more elegantly even than the King James Bible. “Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself.” Hubert Parry set those words to music in 1902 for the investiture of King Edward VII, and his gorgeous anthem has been sung at every subsequent British Coronation.

But Jerusalem has rarely been “at unity in itself,” and it certainly is not today. Neither the dazzling Anglican hymn, nor Thomas Cranmer’s baroque translation, nor, indeed, the original Hebrew words bear much relation to contemporary reality.