In all the earth, O Lord, our Lord

Facing more competition than for no.4, this Free Church of Scotland paraphrase from the 1997 Sing Psalms (retained in 2003 with one line changed) proved the first choice of versions for what C S Lewis called ‘this short, exquisite lyric’. Among 20th-c paraphrasers Timothy Dudley-Smith, Brian Foley, Fred Kaan and Michael Perry also have texts in print. As with others from the Scottish source, this combines a standard metre with meticulous faithfulness to the biblical text (particularly at crucial points such as stz 4 and 5.1), which is never an easy task. It replicates the original in bringing its praise full circle from the first stz to the last. ‘In the Bible the revelation of God and man’s understanding of his own existence are intimately bound up with each other’—Weiser. How great we are! How small we are! How great is God! Among several NT allusions are the shouting children as defended by Jesus in Matthew 21, and the conclusions drawn about him in Hebrews 2. BISHOPTHORPE, often ascribed to Jeremiah Clarke (c1673–1707) and so attributed and indexed here, is more probably the work of Jeremiah Clark (c1749–1809) as detailed in HSB195, April 1993, and summarised in the Companion to Rejoice and Sing, 1999. The tune, repeated at 241, was revolutionary in its time; Millar Patrick calls it ‘captivating … with a fine melodic contour, and a bright grace of spirit impossible to resist. Its charm depends partly on the secondary notes of all kinds Clark attaches to certain syllables, and partly on the rhythmical variety he introduces to enliven the [then] usual procession of minims and semibreves’ (Four Centuries of Scottish Psalmody, 1949, p180). It takes its name from the traditional home of the Archbishops of York, a village just S of the city.

1997ff. In writing in 1979 about the Scottish metrical Psalms in general and the Church Hymnary 3rd Edn (CH3, 1973) in particular, Erik Routley commended 3 versions by Ian Pitt-Watson (1921–95): ‘His versions are beautifully done and are a good augury for any revision of the Scottish Psalter that may, within the next thousand years or so, be in view.’ (A Panorama of Christian Hymnody pp189–90, revised edn 2005 p400.) Without waiting for future millennia, a committee of the Free Ch of Scotland chaired by Donald M MacDonald began work in the 1990s towards a completely new version of the 150 Psalms which would be ‘a metrical translation rather than a paraphrase’. As in 1650 but unlike Watts and many versions in Praise!, there is no ‘Christianising’; it avoids any rendering ‘which determines whether the passage is exclusively or typically messianic’ and aims to avoid archaisms and (where possible) the inversions which have plagued so many earlier metrical Psalters. Verse (stz) numbers correspond to standard English translations. Various samples were made available, on whole-page format, as the work progressed, some of which are used here; the complete book was published in 2003 with the traditional split pages (music above words), to allow for easy reference to alternative tunes. The texts are anonymous but many contemporary tunes are featured. Its brief Preface, followed by a Music Preface, is also much to the point; an Appendix adds 5 items from the 1650 Psalter and tunes, composers and topics are indexed. A words-only edn is also available. See B E Bridge in HSB215 (April 1998). Nos.4, 8, 112, 113, 119E, 129.