Psalter Hymnal (Gray) ‎#45

45. I Praise the King with All My Verses

Text Information

• First Line: I praise the king with all my verses
• Title: I Praise the King with All My Verses
• Versifier: Marie J. Post (1985)
• Versifier: Bert Polman (1986)
• Meter: 98 98 88
• Language: English
• Publication Date: 1987
• Scripture:
  Psalm 45
• Topic: King, God/Christ as; Marriage; Christmas
• Copyright: Text © 1987, CRC Publications

Tune Information

• Name: O DASS ICH TAUSEND
• Composer: Johann B. König (1738)
• Meter: 98 98 88
• Key: F Major

Text Information:

A song exalting the LORD's anointed on his wedding day.

Scripture References:
st. 1 = vv. 1-4
st. 2 = vv. 5-7
st. 3 = vv. 8-9
st. 4 = vv.l0-12
st.5 = vv.13-17

Associated with "the Sons of Korah," this song in praise of the king on his wedding day undoubtedly refers to the LORD's anointed from the house of David. It may have been used at more than one royal wedding. Since the bride is a foreign princess, the psalmist highlights the king's standing as internationally significant. In post-exilic times this psalm's importance as a description of the Messiah came to the forefront, and the author of Hebrews applied it directly to Christ (1:8-9).

The main body of the song falls into two parts: words addressed to the king (vv. 3-9) and words addressed to the bride (vv. 10-15). Each of the two parts includes exhortations to and a description of the glory of the king or the bride. The psalmist begins by announcing the praise of the king, the defender of truth and right (st. 1). Hail to you, victorious and righteous king, blessed by God, says the psalmist (st. 2); hail to you, glorious king, robed in splendor (st. 3). And to the bride: Be loyal to your royal groom (st. 4). The psalmist then extols the bride's glory, the certainty of the king's dynasty, and the king's international honor (st. 5).

Marie J. Post (PHH 5) versified this psalm in 1985 in four-line stanzas. Bert Polman (PHH 37), at the request of the Psalter HymnalRevision Committee, altered the versification to six-line stanzas in 1986 to match the tune O DASS ICH TAUSEND.

Liturgical Use:
Any occasion on which the church celebrates the marriage of Christ and his bride–the church.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Tune Information:

Johann Balthaser König (b. Waltershausen, near Gotha, Germany, 1691; d. Frankfurt, Germany, 1758) composed this tune, which later became associated with Johann Mentzer's hymn "O dass ich tausend Zungen h&aumltte" (Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices). The harmonization is from the Wurttembergische Choralbuch (1653).

Music of that time was not notated with bar lines every three or four beats; here a "quarter bar" marks the division between the two sections of the first longer phrase, and a full bar line delineates the other phrases. Like many of the German chorales, this tune is in bar form (AAB) and may be sung in four-part harmony. The tune begins on an upbeat, with the first accent on the second note.

A chorister in the Kapella of Frankfurt at a young age, König was a student of the famous Georg Philipp Telemann, who later became godfather to König's son. He succeeded Telemann as director of municipal music and became director of music at the Barfiisserkirche and at St. Catherine's Church, all in Frankfurt. In 1727 he also assumed the directorship of the Frankfurt Kapella.

Mainly interested in congregational singing, König presented a document to the Frankfurt city council in which he stated the problems of and solutions for the state of singing in the church.

He edited the largest eighteenth-century German collection of hymns, Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz (1738), which also included O DASS ICH TAUSEND. This collection consisted of over nineteen hundred tunes with figured bass, including the 125 Genevan tunes set to Lobwasser's German translation of John Calvin's psalter. In accord with the style of his day, Konig "straightened out" (made all quarter notes) the originally lively rhythms of many tunes in this significant hymnal.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook