The Lord is King supreme

‘The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice …’; each of the 5 vv of this powerful Psalm, which comes without any note or title, makes a clear and memorable point. Its opening, ‘The LORD reigns’ may by now seem familiar, dating from at least Exodus 15:18 and Judges 8:23, but needs to be constantly reasserted, explained and sung. It opens a sequence of ‘kingly’ Psalms, making clear that the holy city of the holy God requires holy citizens. The editors chose a short metre text for one of the shortest of the group, for which several contemporary versions are also available including Michael Saward’s Clothed in kingly majesty (1971). They have gently adapted the paraphrase used in The Psalter of 1912. ST THOMAS is part of a 16-line tune named HOLBORN from Aaron Williams’ 1763 Collection, marked ‘Never before printed’, probably composed by him, and set to Soldiers of Christ, arise. In this SM form it is also known as WILLIAMS, as first used for Psalm 48 in his 1770 New Universal Psalmist, 5th edn. A different ST THOMAS (anon, c1743) is in 6-line stzs.

A notable landmark in the line of Scottish metrical Psalters beginning with the classic 1650 collection, which remained unchallenged for nearly a century until revisions began in 1745; the 1912 book was the last significant one of its kind before Sing Psalms qv. Nos.46A, 87, 93, 94, 111, 119C, 119F, 135, 140.