Scripture References:
st. 1 = Ps. 18:2, Dan. 7:9, 13, 22
st. 2 = Ps. 18:9-12, Ps. 104:1-3
st. 3 = Ps. 104:7-10
st. 5 = Ps. 145:10
Robert Grant (b. Bengal, India, 1779; d. Dalpoorie, India, 1838) was influenced in writing this text by William Kethe’s (PHH 100) paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns. Stanza 3 was omitted in the Psalter Hymnal.
Rather than being a paraphrase or versification, the text is a meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104. Stanzas 1-3, which allude to Psalm 104:1-6, focus on God’s creation as a testimony to his “measureless Might.” More personal in tone, stanzas 4 and 5 confess the compassion of God toward his creatures and affirm with apocalyptic vision that the “ransomed creation, with glory ablaze” will join with angels to hymn its praise to God.
Of Scottish ancestry, Grant was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where he sponsored a bill to remove civil restrictions on Jews. Grant was knighted in 1834. His hymn texts were published in the Christian Observer (1806-1815), in Elliot’s Psalms and Hymns (1835), and posthumously by his brother as Sacred Poems (1839).
Liturgical Use:
An opening hymn of praise; because of the hymn’s relationship to Psalm 104, see suggestions for use at PHH 104.
--Psalter Hymnal Handbook
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O worship the King, All-glorious above. Sir R. Grant . [Psalms civ.] This version of Psalms civ. is W. Kethe's rendering of the same psalm in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561, reset by Sir R. Grant in the same metre but in a less quaint and much more ornate style, as a quotation of Kethe's stanzas i., iii. will show:—
"My ƒoule praise the Lord,
speake good of his Name
0 Lord our great God
how doeƒt thou appear?
So passing in glorie,
that great is thy fame,
Honour and maieƒtie,
in thee ƒhine moƒt cleare.
"His chamber beames lie,
in the clouds full ƒure,
Which as his chariot,
are made him to beare.
And there with much ƒwiftneƒƒ
his courƒe doth endure:
Vpon the wings riding.
Of winds in the aire."
Sir R. Grant's version was given in Bickersteth's Church Psalmody, 1833, No. 17; in Elliott's Psalms and Hymns, 1835; and in Lord Glenelg's edition of Grant's Sacred Poems. 1839, p. 33. From the Preface to Elliott's Psalms & Hymns we find that the text in Bickersteth was not authorized. It was altered from a source at present unknown to us. The authorized text is in the Hymnal Companion, 1876, with stanza ii., l. 3, thus-—
“His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form."
This text with the omission of the "the" is ill extensive use in all English-speaking countries. It is also in use in an abbreviated and slightly altered form as in Hymns Ancient & Modern, 1861 ; and in the full form, but still altered as before, in Hymns Ancient & Modern1875. The 1839 text is in Church Hymns, 1871; Hymnal Companion, 1876; Turing's Collection, 1882, and others. It has been translation into Latin by R. Bingham, in his Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, p. 143, as, "Glorioso ferte Regi vota vestra carmine."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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St. 1 = Ps 104:1, Ps 89:18, Da 7:9
St. 2 = Ps 104:2, Ps 104:3
St. 3 = Ps 104:5, Ps 104:6
St. 4 = Jb 37:9-13, Ps 104:15, Ps 104:13
St. 5 = Ps 104:29, Ps 104:31, Is 54:5
St. 6 = Ps 104:1, Ps 104:31, Ps 104:33
Sir Robert Grant stood as a man among men, serving both as a member of British Parliament and the governor of Bombay. Though himself of royal station, Grant's pen attested to the highest adoration-- his Maker. The regal prose of his pen ran rich in the lofty expressions and majestic declarations which attested to a humble concession to a being so much higher than himself.
- Psalms and Hymns And Spiritual Songs (2018)
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