03/03/2024
Songwriters and worship singers … celebrate the hymn’s 75th anniversary.
2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of “How Great Thou Art” …
“How Great Thou Art! (Until That Day),” preserves the original English text and nods to the song’s international origins and history….
The evolution of the 19th-century Swedish poem “O Store Gud” (“O Mighty God” or “O Great God”) into the current standard “How Great Thou Art” is part of a centuries-old practice of borrowing and imitation in sacred music….
The original poem, written in 1885 by Carl Boberg, was set to a traditional folk tune and published in the Swedish Missionary Alliance hymnbook as well as a US Swedish hymnbook called Sionsharpen. Subsequent translations preserve Boberg’s focus on God’s power displayed in creation and human wonder….
The song was translated into Russian by I. S. Prokhanoff in 1908 and into German by Manfred von Glehn in 1912, making its way to the United States again by way of the Russian translation in a collection of hymns published by the American Bible Society in 1922….
The first English translation—“O Mighty God, When I Behold the Wonder”—came a few years later by E. Gustav Johnson, a relatively literal reflection of the original Swedish….
The version we know and sing now came from British missionary Stuart Hine, who learned the Russian version while ministering in western Ukraine in the 1930s and eventually created his own translation in English. He wrote the fourth verse (“When Christ shall come …”) in 1948, moved by his encounters with some of the Ukrainian refugees flooding into England in the aftermath of World War II….
Hine’s English version was featured alongside the Russian in the missionary magazine Grace and Peace, circulating the hymn to over 15 countries and eventually reaching George Beverly Shea and Billy Graham….
One could argue that Hine’s decision to copyright the text and tune of “How Great Thou Art” halted the process that allowed the hymn to move and adapt so freely between 1885 and his publication in 1949….
Redman and Wong’s addition to “How Great Thou Art” comes after the fourth verse; it follows the structure of the verses but alters the traditional melody, carrying on the forward-looking tone of Hine’s final verse:
Until that day
When heaven bids us welcome,
And as we walk this broken warring world,
Your kingdom come,
Deliver us from evil,
And we’ll proclaim our God how great You are!
Redman and Wong wanted to acknowledge the connection between Stuart’s work in Ukraine and with Ukrainian refugees and the current conflict in the region….
Read more at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/january-web-only/how-great-thou-art-matt-redman-anniversary-history-stuart-h.html
To listen to the new version with added lyrics, click on the link below:
https://youtu.be/kSfTnv9NvV8?si=UQ3AjMr1KV44bWSg
Official Live Video for “How Great Thou Art (Until That Day)” by Matt Redman, @...
