Psalm 72
As we spend another Sunday at home, we miss our opportunity to worship Him together and to sing praises to His Name. How precious to recall that the Lord sang with His own. Matthew 26 verse 30: ‘When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives’. We know that that this would have been a Psalm.
Although our hymns are not divinely inspired, many of them contain precious truths. In the past, we have enjoyed hearing about the history of some of these. Let us consider Isaac Watts’ translation of Psalm 72 into hymnody:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Doth its successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
To him shall endless prayer be made,
And endless praises crown His head;
His name like sweet perfume shall rise
With every morning sacrifice.
Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honours to our King;
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the loud Amen!
If we read the lovely words of Psalm 72, we find in verse 8: ‘He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth; verse 5: ‘They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations’; verse 17: ‘His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed’; verse 19: ‘And blessed be his glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory: Amen, and Amen.’
History of the Hymn
Isaac Watts was the pioneer hymn writer of the eighteenth century, who wrote over 600 hymns. His parents were believers and when he was born in 1674 his father was in prison for his nonconformist sympathies. He had refused to embrace the established Church of England which did not preach the gospel. From 1660 to 1688 believers were persecuted by a series of laws which made it illegal to worship in any other setting than that of the Church of England. Believers who refused to submit to the teaching, practice and authority of the established church suffered for their faith. In later life, Isaac recalled his mother’s account of nursing her children on the steps of the prison. To stand for the truth cost dearly. Witness to his father’s sufferings for the gospel and genuinely moved by his father’s courage in the face of persecution, Isaac came under the deep conviction of sin and was saved in 1689 at the age of fifteen. Displaying early genius, several wealthy acquaintances offered to pay for his university education at Oxford or Cambridge, which would have led him into the Anglican ministry. However, Isaac refused and at 16 went to London to study theology at a nonconformist academy. After graduation in 1694 he returned to his parents in Southampton and during this time began to write hymns.
In October of 1696, Isaac took a position as the tutor of the household of a wealthy nonconformist by the name of John Hartopp and preached his first sermons in the family chapel in Freeby, in Leicestershire. In 1702 he became pastor of the Mark Lane Independent Chapel in London until 1712. Serious illness brought him to the home of Sir Thomas and Lady Abney, at Theobalds, near Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Intending to stay only until he recovered his health, he ended up remaining with this family for 36 years until his death in 1748.
By all accounts Isaac was an inspiring preacher of the word, but is widely remembered for the many hymns he wrote. Among them is the lovely hymn: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”. While living on the Abney estate, Isaac devoted himself to an interesting and massive project, adapting the Psalms of David to be sung as hymns. In 1719 he published “The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament”. He explained his purpose: “Where the Psalmist describes religion by the fear of God, I have often joined faith and love to it. Where he speaks of the pardon of sin through the mercies of God, I have added the merits of a Saviour. Where he talks of sacrificing goats or bullocks, I … mention the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God …”
Isaac Watts was of his time and did not enjoy the full possession of assembly truth rediscovered during the nineteenth century, but he established a marker during the dark days of persecution. By regaining the truths of salvation he helped to light the way for the great preachers and hymn writers of the later eighteenth century; John Newton, and John and Charles Wesley spring to mind. His hymns are infused with a reverence and dignity which springs from a heartfelt appreciation of the sovereignty and purposes of God. In 1730 he wrote: “The great and glorious God is jealous of His own authority, and the honour of His Son … the only appointed Saviour. It is the gospel alone that is the power of God to salvation.”
David Edwards