O mighty rulers, can you claim

The title says ‘Of David’; its prophetic tone (cf 82) could almost suggest Nathan, or Elijah. As a modern preface to its own ‘Evangelical Psalter’ version Rulers who make themselves as gods, PHRW offers, ‘David’s indictment of godless rulers constitutes a prayer for lands closed to the Gospel’. Bert Polman’s text was written in 1983 and published 4 years later in the N American Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Church. Agreed changes are ‘foster’ for ‘favour’ (1.8); and lines 5–8 of stz 2 which formerly, and more literally, read: ‘O LORD, destroy these enemies and scatter all their might;/ let them be like a stillborn child that never sees the light’. (Kidner: ‘This is the fierceness of men who care about justice’—but that may not readily make for edifying worship.) ‘Righteous’ replaces ‘crying’ in 3.1, and the final 2 lines replace ‘for we can see there is a God who judges all as LORD’. Annabeth Gay’s tune SHEPHERD’S PIPES was used for these words when they first appeared, and in Praise! is repeated from 52 which has a similar theme and mood.

b Rozenburg, The Netherlands 1945. After his first 2 years spent in Indonesia, he returned to Holland and in 1955 emigrated with his family to Canada. He studied at Dordt Coll, Sioux Center, Iowa (BA 1968), Univ of Minnesota (MA 1969, PhD Musicology 1981). From 1975 to 1985 he taught music at Ontario Bible Coll, before becoming Music Prof, first at Redeemer Coll, Ancaster, Ontario, then at Calvin Coll, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Latterly he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship leading seminars, workshops and other studies, mainly in N America. A specialist in hymnology and liturgy, he served on the committee for the 1987 Psalter Hymnal of the Christian Reformed Ch (which has 23 of his texts) and The Worshiping Church (1990). The 1998 Psalter Hymnal Handbook, for which he was a co-editor and major contributor, concludes with a section relating the hymns to Dutch Reformed doctrine. Paul A Richardson (2005) writes of Polman’s ‘significant contributions to hymnody as a scholar, editor and musician, and ‘his several effective versifications of Scripture’. Nos.58, 70.