1 Oh Lord, my God
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
Refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
2 When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:
Refrain
3 And when I think that God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin
Refrain
4 When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration
And then proclaim, my God, how great Thou art
Carl Gustav Boberg
Trans. by Stuart K. Hine
The Methodist Hymnal 1964 edition
<idle musing>
As I've mentioned before, this hymn wasn't in the hymnal I grew up with; it wasn't until 1969 or so when we got the new hymnal that we could sing it as a congregation. Before that it was always a solo special. One person who sang it especially well was Earl Knight, a friend of the family. He told the story of how one time he and his wife were flying to the Southwest and as they were flying over the the Rockies, he looked out and saw the mountains. His response was to take out his ukelele and sing "How Great Thou Art" right there in the plane. All the passengers applauded when he was done. I'm sure some joined him on the chorus.
One little factiod that I just learned by reading the short bios is that this is actually a translation from the Russian of a translation into the German from the original Swedish! So, a fourth generation translation.
</idle musing>
No comments:
Post a Comment