Listen, my friends, to each word

Authors:
Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Exodus 10:2
  • Exodus 13:14
  • Exodus 13:21-22
  • Exodus 14:21-22
  • Exodus 15:17
  • Exodus 16:2-15
  • Exodus 17:1-7
  • Exodus 20:1-21
  • Exodus 40:36-38
  • Exodus 7:14-17
  • Numbers 11:6-9
  • Numbers 20:1-13
  • Numbers 9:15-23
  • Deuteronomy 6:20
  • Joshua 11:16-23
  • Joshua 3:10-17
  • Joshua 4:6-7
  • Judges 2:10-15
  • Judges 6:13
  • 1 Samuel 16:1-13
  • 1 Samuel 26:21
  • 1 Samuel 4:21-22
  • 2 Samuel 7:8
  • 1 Chronicles 17:7
  • Job 14:1-2
  • Job 15:18
  • Psalms 105:26-42
  • Psalms 132:13
  • Psalms 136:10-16
  • Psalms 44:1-3
  • Psalms 49:1
  • Psalms 71:18
  • Psalms 77:20
  • Psalms 78:21-22
  • Psalms 80:1-3
  • Psalms 95:7-11
  • Isaiah 63:11-12
  • Joel 1:3
  • Zechariah 2:12
  • Matthew 13:35
  • Luke 12:32
  • John 10:27-28
  • John 10:35
  • John 6:31-33
  • Acts 7:42
  • Romans 1:24-28
Book Number:
  • 78

Part 1

Listen, my friends, to each word;
let my teaching be faithfully heard:
parables hidden of old
our parents have told.
So let us not hide them, but speak in our turn
God’s wonders, so that our children can learn
the truth we are eager to tell,
the law he gave Israel;
then children yet to be
will pass on their faith to their family
so they will trust in him
and not let the memory dim.

2. Some have rejected God’s law,
turned their backs on the wonders they saw,
miracles done by his hand
in old Egypt’s land.
He cut through the sea and let none of them fall,
the waters he made stand up like a wall;
the cloud was a guide in their flight,
the fire a pillar by night:
he split rocks in the drought-
abundance of water came flowing out;
the streams came from the stone
and rivers of water poured down.

3. God and his word they defy,
become rebels against the most High,
treating their Lord as a slave,
demand what they crave.
‘Can God give us food like this drink from the earth?
A table, spread to supply all our dearth?
He gave us a river indeed,
but bread is what people need!’
Then God broke out in flame
when they did not trust in his holy name;
the Lord’s command was given
to open the windows of heaven.

Part 2

4. God gave them manna like rain
and from heaven provided their grain;
bread of the angels to eat
till they were replete.
The wind he set free from the skies in the east,
the south wind blew to replenish their feast
with food till they needed no more
and quails like sand on the shore:
their camp was covered round
among all their tents and across the ground:
but God was moved to wrath;
young men were cut down in their path.

5. Spurning the gifts they received
they refused to repent and believe,
ending their days full of fears,
in weakness their years.
While still under judgement, they cried in their pain
‘God help us!’ to their Redeemer again
and though all the prayers they said
arose from hearts that were dead,
the Lord forgave them all;
in mercy he listened and heard their call,
these creatures of a day,
a breath that is passing away!

6. Time and again they rebelled,
their devotion and trust they withheld,
putting their God to the test
and losing their rest.
The rivers of Egypt had turned into blood,
frogs jumping everywhere, gnats like a flood,
came flies and the plague, boils and hail,
and locusts, darkness prevailed;
and then, each firstborn son
struck down on the Passover night, each one;
but God’s flock safely led,
protected and guided and fed.

Part 3

7. Up to the hill he had bought,
to the holy land which they had sought,
God saw the tribes safely come
and gave them their home.
But just as their fathers had done long before,
disloyal, faithless, they sinned even more,
they tested and flouted his rule
served idols and played the fool:
the true God gave them up,
removing their sanctuary and their hope;
the ark passed from the land
and into the enemy’s hand.

8. Death came to men young and strong
and the maidens had no wedding song;
people and priest to the sword
by word from the Lord!
Until once again as from sleep he awoke,
he rose up, enemy power he broke:
took Judah, the tribe of his love,
Mount Zion, towering above,
and David, from the sheep,
to shepherd his people, to guard and keep;
for God’s word will not break,
his flock he will never forsake.

© Author / Jubilate Hymns
Christopher Idle

The Father - His Covenant

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Tune

The story behind the hymn

The longest Psalm of its kind is the 78th—since the 119th is written in a different style which is all its own. This mini-epic is a classic narrative of the history of God’s people (with an anti-Ephraim slant which may not be essential for today), through triumph and disaster, in a sometimes unusual order but with nothing totally unfamiliar: ‘God has blessed us; we have failed; God is merciful; let us pass on our story!’ It may include riddles, parables, or dark sayings (v2), but Deuteronomy 32 has prepared us for some of them. On v19, Amy Carmichael wrote in 1922 (stz 1 of Provision): ‘Can God spread a table/ in the wilderness?/ Is our Father able?/ Praise him, Yes!’ Doddridge again: ‘The pregnant clouds at thy command/ rain down delicious bread;/ and by light drops of pearly dew/ are numerous armies fed’. This was the first request made to Christopher Idle from the Psalms team for this book, at a meeting at Highbury early in 1996; a full version was asked for. So one basic need was for a tune which would keep moving in order to sustain the devotional energy of a congregation. Having settled on the music, the author assembled his text over the months up to June; two key moments proved to be the beginning, where ‘my friends’ serve for ‘my people’, and the frogs jumping in tune in stz 6, where the 10 plagues revert to their Exodus order. After further discussion, tidying up, and a rare singthrough at an editorial meeting at Reading, it was published in Light upon the River (1998) and then in Praise! Both books suggest selections of stzs for those unable to sing it all. The tune is known as GOD’S SPIRIT IS IN MY HEART, from the first line of a song by Hubert Richards, or GO, TELL EVERYONE, from the opening phrase of its refrain. He adapted the words from Alan Dale’s 1967 Bible paraphrase New World, and published them in Ten Gospel Songs (1969) with melody line and guitar chords. In Sound of Living Waters (1974) Betty Pulkingham’s keyboard arrangement appeared, as used here.

A look at the author

Idle, Christopher Martin

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.