In 1995 Penderecki was commissioned to write a work to commemorate the third millennium of Jerusalem, a city the composer had first visited in 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

In this sense, it is a return to those seventeenth-century composers, whose works use large forces along with concertato sonorities to present biblical texts, but conceived along much larger lines.

[4]Zychowicz adds that while "each of the movements is distinct enough to stand on its own merits, ... when conceived together, [they] form a cohesive symphonic structure.

The work is not only written in seven movements but is "pervaded by the number 'seven' at various levels," with an extensive system of seven-note phrases binding the work together, "while the frequent presence of seven notes repeated at a single pitch will be evident even on a first hearing, as also the seven fortissimo chords bringing the seventh and final movement to an end.

"[2] Zychowicz states that the composer's manipulation of text may have been an important factor in shaping the musical structure of the work, as well.