Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “I’ll praise the Lord for ever and ever” by Paul Wigmore. It’s based on parts of Psalm 34 (specifically, verses 1, 4, 8 and 22 of the psalm for the four verses of the hymn, and v.3 for the chorus). The psalm as a whole is one of the more positive ones (in the New Revised Standard Version it’s captioned ‘Praise for deliverance from trouble’), and these selected verses are the most affirming of all. “I will praise the Lord for ever and ever, my soul shall boast of his wonderful name”, and the other verses say how he answers prayer, delivers us from fear, offers secure refuge and redeems but never condemns those who trust in him.
All this makes it a good sing (whether using the tune provided, or the one that John wrote). But the Psalms are still much-used precisely because they contain such a wide range of emotions, representing the reality of life that even those who do have faith in God can still suffer some awful experiences that test that very faith. Perhaps the composer of this hymn should have included some of the verses of PS.34 that acknowledge this (“this poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord … keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit … many are the afflictions of the righteous”).
Yes, Stephen, I do agree. Particularly as the Psalm has 22 verses making an acrostic poem (i.e. the verses begin with the letters of the alphabet in order – in their Hebrew order, that is), and the writer obviously isn’t bothered about rhyme, why not try to translate this structure into English?
1. All of my life I will praise and extol him:
praises and thanks to the Lord from my lips.
2. Boasting of all that the Lord God has given,
let the afflicted give ear and rejoice.
[missing out verse 3 since it’s the chorus]
4. Come, seek the Lord, for when I sought he answered,
gave me deliv’rance from all of my fears.
5. Dazzling the faces of those who are seeking:
he sends his radiance and saves them from shame.
6. Even a poor chap like me, when I called him
found that he heard me and saved me from harm.
7. Fear him, and you will find angels around you
saving, deliv’ring, and camping beside.
… and so on and so forth. Actually I will run into problems, because Hebrew has only 22 letters in its alphabet whereas English has 26. So the last verse will begin with a U, and I suppose it will have to include all the remaining letters in a tremendous rush:
Ultimate Vict’ry will Wrap the eXalted:
You who are Zealous for him will be saved!
Must stop writing and turn in for the evening!