All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make;
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.
O enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
For why? the Lord our God is good;
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure.
To Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
The God whom Heaven and earth adore,
From men and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.
Welcome to our first Hymn of the Week! I’ve chosen “All People that on Earth Do Dwell,” which was how a Scotsman named William Kethe, back in 1561, translated into English verse the 100th psalm, which begins, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all ye lands.” The melody we mostly sing it by is called OLD HUNDREDTH, and that should tell you a lot about how deep were the roots the old hymns set into the English heart and soul and mind. That’s because Kethe’s translation was taken up by the famous Scottish Psalter, printed in 1564. Everybody knew the melodies by the psalms they sang to them. So, “Old 124th” was the melody the one they sang the 124th psalm to, translated into English verses in the old Scottish Psalter. If you were in a poor parish, you might have a hymnal without the music, and then you would have all those melodies by heart.
A hymn is a special kind of poem, in praise of the Lord, giving thanks, confessing to him, beseeching him for some benefit, begging his mercy, or remembering his wondrous deeds. Just as a sacred painting has to work as a painting, and gets no special points for its piety, but rather must be held sometimes to a more severe standard than other paintings are, so the hymn must work as a poem. It must make sense. Its images must be well chosen. It must not depend on cliches. Its rhymes must be apt, not forced. It must help us to see what we overlook, to hear what we often ignore. It must at least be solid, like wood or stone, not airy or fluffy. It must be a coherent whole, not a patchwork; it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, building to a climax.
I think that Kethe’s translation works admirably. Each stanza is simple and straightforward, and each one builds upon the one before it. In the first, we are called to praise God. The second tells us why, and it gives us the most important reason: we exist! We have been made; we did not make ourselves. Not only that, but we are “his folk,” and, says Kethe, following the psalmist, “for his sheep he doth us take.” He has a special care for us, a care even beyond that which he bestows upon the birds and the beasts. That leads us to the third stanza, where we ourselves are on the move: we are urged to enter the gates of the Lord, singing his praises. Think of the Hebrews of old entering, with great joy and fanfare, the holy Temple on the Sabbath feast. Why, it is a foretaste of the temple we hope one day to enter and never to leave again, that temple not made by human hands, that is the very dwelling place of God. And the fourth stanza again gives us a reason, beyond that God made us. The Lord is good; “his mercy is forever sure.” Man may sin and fall away from God, but His mercy endures, and if we turn back, he will be ready to welcome us.
What more is to be said? No more, and that is why the final stanza is a “doxology,” a “glory-word.” Many of the old Christian hymns ended with a doxology. We praise the holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, uniting our voices with those of the angels. Beyond this, there is nowhere to go: for God is all in all.
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