Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

This shortest of the biblical Psalms, which has provided us with Watts’ From all that dwell beneath the skies (171), expresses the heart of all praise and is itself a model of what even the briefest songs can and should contain. The apostle Paul used it towards the climax of his greatest letter (Romans 15:11) to underline God’s commitment, and his own, to an international mission. If it is true that adherents of ‘other faiths’ need conversion to the living God, it is also true that songs from Christian believers of all nations have a place in worship. Not surprisingly, many other writers have tried their hand at paraphrase, but the shortest texts are not always (if ever) the easiest to perfect. This version draws on another published metrical Psalter, from the Church of Ireland in 1887. Graham Deans’ version (with a Christian doxology) from his 1999 Presbyterian Praise is one of his 4 texts in the 2004 CH: Come all you nations everywhere. IN BABILONE is a traditional melody from Holland, first arranged as a hymn tune by EH, which set it to See, the Conqueror mounts in triumph. It has since been used with various texts.

One of a long line of paraphrases, this time from the Ch of Ireland, which has yielded one short, rarely-sung and now adapted text. No.117.