The Lord is King! With joyful sound

A further celebration of divine sovereignty continues the majestic theme of this cluster of Pss. Unusually, and unlike its predecessor, this 1986 version by David Preston has undergone considerable revision (July 1998) since its appearance in BP, where it began ‘The LORD is King! O sing aloud’. Two lines in each of the first 2 stzs are rewritten (though the mountains still melt like wax), and the original 5th is replaced with a new 5 and 6, thus preserving the memorable ‘Let everyone who loves the LORD/ hate evil …’; cf Rom 12:9. Keble’s version has the unusual rhyme-scheme of aaab cccb dddb eeeb, etc, for 7 stzs to hhhb. The originally recommended MAINZER (found in Praise! at 872) is replaced with a more regal-sounding tune in Robert Jackson’s NIAGARA. This first appeared with the earlier The Lord is king, by Conder, as here at 500. It was published, in B flat, in the Congregational Church Hymnal of 1887, but may have been in use prior to that. ‘The name’, says the Companion to Rejoice and Sing, ‘is unexplained’.

b London 1939. d 2020. Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School, Kennington, London; Keble College Oxford (MA Mod Langs.) He worked as a French Teacher, including 11 years at Ahmadu Bello Univ, Nigeria, and gained a PhD on the French Christian poet Pierre Emmanuel (1916 84). A member of Carey Baptist Ch, Reading, for many years, he later moved to Alweston, nr Sherborne, Dorset. He compiled The Book of Praises (Carey Publications, Liverpool) in 1987, with versions of 71 Psalms; these include modified texts of Watts and a few other classic paraphrasers, but most are by contemporary writers including himself. 60 of his metrical Psalm versions are so far published, including one each in Sing Glory (2000), the Scottish Church Hymnary 4th Edn (2005) and Sing Praise (2010), and 3 in the 2004 edn of CH; also 10 tunes. His writing and composing has taken place in Leicester, Reading, Nigeria and his present home; he was a member of the editorial board throughout the preparation of Praise! and had a major share in the choice of music for the Psalm texts (1-150). His convictions about the Psalms, as expressed in the Introduction to BP, are that ‘There is nothing to compare with their blend of the subjective and the objective, the inner life and practical goodness, the knowledge of one’s own rebellious heart and the knowledge of God…Today’s general neglect of congregational Psalm singing is a symptom of the spiritual malaise of our churches. When the preaching of the Gospel has prospered, bringing into being churches vibrant with spiritual life, men and women have taken great delight in praising their Maker and Redeemer through these scriptural hymns’. 15 of his own, self-selected, feature as his share of ‘contemporary hymns’ in the 2009 Come Celebrate; he has also served as a meticulous proof-reader. Nos.1, 2A, 5*, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 19A, 24A, 27A, 30B, 32*, 33*, 38, 40, 42, 43, 47, 51*, 52, 55, 57*, 64, 66, 74, 76, 77, 84, 90, 91A, 96*, 97, 99, 100B, 101, 114*, 120, 126, 132, 139, 142*, 143, 145A, 147*, 824*, 830*, 963*.