284, “Give Thanks to God, for Good is He” While it’s not my intent to completely tear apart this particular Psalter Hymnal selection, it just seems to be a shame that our songbook doesn’t give better treatment to such a jubilant psalm of praise. Perhaps an even better and more familiar choice would be DIX, the tune of “For the Beauty of the Earth” or “Safely Through Another Week” (#320). Again I’ll point you to the tune of “Praise Jehovah for His Love,” BETTER LAND, which is much more uplifting and suitable for these words. With a monotonous rhythm and a pedestrian melody line, REMEIN (the tune used with number 283 in the blue Psalter Hymnal) is far from perfect. Why did the editors of the blue Psalter Hymnal feel the need to rewrite a perfectly good psalm setting? Why did they decide to repeat each refrain twice, breaking up the flow of thought between the stanzas even more? Perhaps I’ll never know, but at the very least I’d suggest that you take a second look at “Praise Jehovah for His Love,” which I’ve copied in its entirety below. Yet I found that this versification was less accurate, more archaic, and more cumbersome than its predecessor. True, the old version “Praise Jehovah for His Love” has 36 lines in total, whereas “Now May All in Brotherhood” has 80-yes, eighty. “This one has ten verses rather than six, so maybe it’s more complete and accurate,” I thought, but that conclusion proved to be wrong as well. What’s even more confusing is that the 1912 Psalter and the 1934 Psalter Hymnal both contain a setting of Psalm 136 in the very same meter, with an almost identical refrain (“For His mercy doth endure,/Ever faithful, ever sure”)-but the texts are very different. It comes neither out of the Genevan/Dutch Psalter nor the 1912 Psalter it was created specifically for the blue 1959 Psalter Hymnal by Harry Mayer and Johannes Dirk Plekker. 283, “Now May All in Brotherhood”Īfter plenty of studying and comparing hymnals, I simply can’t figure out why this psalm setting was created. Today we consider the Psalter Hymnal’s two versifications of Psalm 136.
Regarding the refrain, the ESV Study Bible comments, “Perhaps the psalm was to be sung responsively, with a priest leading with the first line of each verse, and a Levitical choir or the whole congregation replying with the refrain.” If it strikes you as monotonous to repeat “For his steadfast love endures forever” 26 times, just remember how quick we are to forget what the Lord has done for us, and how great his steadfast love truly is. In its opening verses, Psalm 136 bears considerable similarity to Psalm 118, while the rest of the psalm echoes other historical selections such as Psalms 104 and 105. This psalm is unique for its repetitive style and its refrain, “For his steadfast love endures forever,” which occurs a whopping 26 times. INDEXES: For a complete list of all the indexes on this blog, click here.If after reading Psalm 136 you scratch your head and say, “I can’t figure out the theme here,” you’re obviously missing something.
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