How Great Thou Art

17 How Great Thou Art

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>