Musical Notes

Hello OCBC family,
“Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.” (Psalm 48:1a).
After “Amazing Grace”, the most well know hymn for Christians is “How Great Thou Art”, a majestic hymn that tells us that God is the Creator, and He provided a salvation for sinners through His Son, Jesus Christ, and one day, He will return to take us to our heavenly home.

This hymn is not originally in English, but in Swedish, and it came to us through a “language journey.” The author was Carl Boberg, born on August 16, 1859, Mönsterås parish, Kalmar County, Sweden. He was a poet, schoolteacher and member of parliament. He wrote a poem for a collection of hymns for a hospital, and the name of the hymn was, “O store Gud” (“O Great God”). It became very popular hymn among Swedish believers.

Manfred von Glehn, an Estonian, prepared a German translation of the text in 1907, which became the basis for a Russian translation by Ivan S. Prokhanoff in 1912.

This Russian version called the attention of Stuart Wesley Keene Hine, born in London in 1899, while he was doing missionary work with his wife in Ukraine.

Hine completed the English version in 1949 and it became very popular worldwide when George Beverly Shea sang it during Billy Graham’s crusade in Toronto, 1955.

A minor change was made from the original British version to the American version.

Believers in England sing the first stanza in this way,
“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.”

Believers in America sing the first stanza in this way,
“O 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.”

The third stanza is a powerful presentation of the gospel. It is based on Hebrews 12:1-2, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

“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.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 says, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

Perhaps Carl Boberg used this passage to pen the last stanza.

“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 there proclaim: ‘My God, how great thou art!’”

Please, enjoy this hymn every time you sing it, and repeat with Boberg/Hine,
“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!”

In His service,
Israel