The name Jehovah in the hymns of the church

The name Jehovah appears in some of the best-loved hymns in the English language, among them “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”, “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne” and “The God of Abraham Praise”. Hymn writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took the word from the King James Version, where it stands at seven memorable places, and they valued it because it was a name rather than a title. It let a congregation address the God of Israel personally, with the whole covenant history of the Old Testament behind it, and its three syllables, stressed in the middle, fitted the metres of English hymnody well. Many hymnals still print these hymns with the name intact, though some editions alter it. Singing the name was, for these writers, one way of doing what the apostle asked: letting the word of Christ dwell richly in the church through psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

— Colossians 3:16 (BSB)

Why hymn writers reached for the name

Three things drew the hymn writers to “Jehovah”. The first was familiarity. For English-speaking Protestants the King James Version was the Bible, and its few uses of JEHOVAH, at Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18 and elsewhere, stood out on the page. A congregation that had heard those verses read aloud recognised the name at once.

The second was the tradition of singing the Psalms. Before hymns became common in English Protestant worship, many churches sang only metrical versions of the Psalms, and the Psalms are full of the divine name. When writers began to write freely composed hymns, or to recast the Psalms in Christian language, the name came with the material.

The third was theological. A title such as “Lord” or “God” could be used of many beings; “Jehovah” named the one God who called Abraham, rescued Israel from Egypt and made a covenant with his people. Evangelical hymn writers, who wanted their congregations to know God personally, found in the name a way of saying that the God of the Old Testament is the same God who saves in Christ. The entry on the seven places the KJV prints JEHOVAH shows the verses they knew best.

Watts, Wesley and the Hundredth Psalm

Isaac Watts published “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne” in The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament in 1719. It is a paraphrase of Psalm 100, and John Wesley later altered its opening lines into the form most often sung today. The word “awful” here carries its older meaning of “awe-inspiring”, not “dreadful”. The psalm behind it calls the whole earth to worship:

A Psalm of thanksgiving. Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah, all ye lands. Serve Jehovah with gladness: Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that Jehovah, he is God: It is he that hath made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

— Psalm 100:1-3 (ASV)

Watts’s method was to keep the substance of each psalm while reading it in the light of the gospel. By using the name, he kept the psalm’s own voice: the God being praised is not an abstract deity but the God of Israel, now known to the nations.

Pilgrims in the wilderness

“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” began as a Welsh hymn by William Williams of Pantycelyn, the great hymn writer of the Welsh revival, first published in 1745. Its first verse was translated into English by Peter Williams in 1771, and further English verses followed, probably from William Williams himself. In Britain it is most often sung to John Hughes’s tune “Cwm Rhondda”, composed in the early twentieth century.

The hymn is a prayer of a pilgrim, and its imagery comes straight from the exodus: the barren wilderness, the bread from heaven, the pillar of cloud and fire, the crossing of the Jordan. The name fits because it was Jehovah who led Israel through that wilderness:

And Jehovah went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; that they might go by day and by night:

— Exodus 13:21 (ASV)

Some hymnals print the first line as “Guide me, O thou great Redeemer”. The change keeps the prayer but loses the link to the story of Israel that the original name supplied.

Olivers, Cowper and M’Cheyne

Thomas Olivers, a Welsh-born preacher who worked with John Wesley, wrote “The God of Abraham Praise” around 1770. By a well-known account, he wrote it after hearing the Yigdal, a Jewish hymn based on the thirteen principles of faith set out by Maimonides, sung in a London synagogue; he adapted its tune and something of its structure in Christian words. It is one of the most striking examples of a Christian hymn indebted, with gratitude, to Jewish worship. The hymn joins the name Jehovah with the divine “I AM” of Exodus:

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

— Exodus 3:14 (ASV)

William Cowper contributed a hymn titled “Jehovah-Jireh” to the Olney Hymns of 1779, the collection he produced with John Newton. It takes its theme from Abraham on Mount Moriah, trusting that God would provide:

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah–jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

— Genesis 22:14 (KJV)

The Scottish minister Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote “Jehovah Tsidkenu” in 1834, a personal testimony of coming to rest in Christ as his righteousness. Its title comes from Jeremiah’s promise of a righteous King:

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called: Jehovah our righteousness.

— Jeremiah 23:6 (ASV)

The entries on Jehovah-Jireh and Jehovah-Tsidkenu explain these compound names more fully.

Where Christians differ

Some Christians sing these hymns gladly with the name as written. Others prefer versions that replace “Jehovah” with “Redeemer” or “the Lord”, out of the same caution that led most modern Bibles to print LORD. Neither practice is a mark of greater faithfulness. This site is glad the old hymns keep the name, and regards the question as a matter of Christian liberty; the entry Is it wrong to say Jehovah? considers the underlying question.

For reflection

Choose one of these hymns and read its words slowly beside the Scripture it draws on, whether Psalm 100, Exodus 13, Genesis 22 or Jeremiah 23. Let the hymn become a prayer, and notice how the name ties your own need for guidance, provision and righteousness to the God who met those needs for his people before. Then sing it with your church, since hymns were written to be sung together.

References

John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology (1892).
Isaac Watts, The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719).
John Newton and William Cowper, Olney Hymns (1779).
Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1844).
The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (1611).