Why do all the nations rage

‘This glorious Psalm is all over Gospel’ – Robert Hawker; and the place of the second Psalm is as eloquent as that of the first. Having been shown the ways ahead, we are immediately introduced to the King by whom we stand or fall. Dick Lucas’s startling title for it is ‘The anger of God revealed in the mission of Christ’; he points out that the world asks why the nations fight one another, while King David asks why they fight God. David Preston’s choice in BP for this Messianic poem was the Isaac Watts version Why do the nations all defy. His own paraphrase began as a revision (in four 8-line stzs) of the 1959 Canadian Psalter Hymnal text for Carey Praise (1989). By May 1998 the Praise! editors felt the need of a fresh approach, and DGP further revised and reduced this text, leaving nothing from the original. The biblical Psalm is uniquely identified by its number in the NT, when in the first preaching of the apostle Paul given in detail (at Antioch in Pisidia, Acts 13:33) he refers to the prophecy of the coming Christ, ‘as it is also written in the second Psalm’. It is through his chosen King that God rules over all the nations. Amy Carmichael wrote in God’s laugh: ‘… But the Lord shall laugh at them;/ short their day and fleeting fast./ And the child of Bethlehem/ shall be King at last, at last.’ While preparing a 77 77 77 tune for When this passing world is done (973), Linda Mawson was asked to modify the final phrases. This proved difficult without also altering the opening section. David Cowen suggested that the group now had two tunes and David Preston chose WOODSIDE, named after the composer’s home at Bromley, for his words.

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*.