Let God arise! His enemies be gone

Written in 1983, this version was sung on Ascension Day 1985 at Limehouse, where Christopher Idle was rector. It was published in Psalms for Today in 1990 where the original text is completed with a doxology (stz 11). Psalm 68 is ‘a rushing cataract’ (Kidner) filled with backward glances and forward hopes. Numbers 10, Deuteronomy 33 and Judges 5 have parallel descriptions of this ‘Advent of God’; Ephesians 4:8ff is a classic NT interpretation. Uniquely in the Psalms, the ‘name’ is given as ‘JAH’ (‘YAH’) in v4, underscoring its Exodus theme as the same title comes in Exodus 15:2. In 1765 another Christopher, ‘Kit’ Smart, put the Psalm into 35 six-line stzs within his complete Psalter; magnificent, even patriotic, but rather too exhausting to sing. Since this Psalm was especially popular with the Reformers and their successors including the militant Huguenots (but note stz 9), Noël Tredinnick was asked to form a new tune around the opening lines of Luther’s EIN’ FESTE BURG (888). His ALL STRENGTH was composed for this text in 1999 at his base in St Paul’s Robert Adam Street in central London, and is first published here. It is, says the composer, ‘loosely based on’ Luther’s tune, ‘using snatches of the melody as appropriate.’ When the alternative SONG 46 is used (797ii), the stzs may be sung alternately, the 2nd group beginning the even-numbered stzs as the 1st singers complete theirs.

b Bromley, Kent 1938. Eltham Coll, St Peter’s Coll Oxford (BA, English), Clifton Theol Coll Bristol; ordained in 1965 to a Barrow-in-Furness curacy. He spent 30 years in CofE parish ministry, some in rural Suffolk, mainly in inner London (Peckham, Poplar and Limehouse). Author of over 300 hymn texts, mainly Scripture based, collected in Light upon the River (1998) and Walking by the River (2008), Trees along the River (2018), and now appearing in some 300 books and other publications; see also the dedication of EP1 (p3) to his late wife Marjorie. He served on 5 editorial groups from Psalm Praise (1973) to Praise!; his writing includes ‘Grove’ booklets Hymns in Today’s Language (1982) and Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (2000), and The Word we preach, the words we sing (Reform, 1998). He edited the quarterly News of Hymnody for 10 years, and briefly the Bulletin of the Hymn Society, on whose committee he served at various times between 1984 and 2006; and addressed British and American Hymn Socs. Until 1996 he often exchanged draft texts with Michael Perry (qv) for mutual criticism and encouragement. From 1995 he was engaged in educational work and writing from home in Peckham, SE London, until retirement in 2003; following his return to Bromley after a gap of 40 years, he has attended Holy Trinity Ch Bromley Common and Hayes Lane Baptist Ch. Owing much to the Proclamation Trust, he also belongs to the Anglican societies Crosslinks and Reform, together with CND and the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. A former governor of 4 primary schools, he has also written songs for school assemblies set to familiar tunes, and (in 2004) Grandpa’s Amazing Poems and Awful Pictures. His bungalow is smoke-free, alcohol-free, car-free, gun-free and TV-free. Nos.13, 18, 21, 23A, 24B, 27B, 28, 31, 35, 36, 37, 48, 50, 68, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 95, 102, 108, 109, 114, 118, 119A, 121A, 125, 128, 131, 145B, 157, 176, 177, 193*, 313*, 333, 339, 388, 392, 420, 428, 450, 451, 463, 478, 506, 514, 537, 548, 551, 572, 594, 597, 620, 621, 622, 636, 668, 669, 693, 747, 763, 819, 914, 917, 920, 945, 954, 956, 968, 976, 1003, 1012, 1084, 1098, 1138, 1151, 1158, 1159, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1221, 1227, 1236, 1237, 1244, 1247, 5017, 5018, 5019, 5020.