Last week I listened to Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence for the first time in over a year, and I remembered something I'd previously noticed but (apparently) haven't written about: the song's verses have the same structure as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). Each Beatitude has the structure "Blessed are [group] for...." The first three lines of each verse in "Blessed" begin with either "Blessed are..." or "Blessed is...." For instance, the first line of the song is "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit," which is almost straight from Beatitudes. It's just missing the direct object of "inherit" - "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5).
I'd noticed that similarity years ago, but when I listened to the song again recently, I found an-other Biblical reference. Each verse ends with the line "Oh, Lord, why have you forsaken me," which is similar to the first half of Psalm 22:1: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This verse is also quoted by Christ on the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34).
