Author: Paul Gerhardt
Paul Gerhardt (b. Gräfenheinichen, Saxony, Germany, 1607; d. Lubben, Germany, 1676), famous author of Lutheran evangelical hymns, studied theology and hymnody at the University of Wittenberg and then was a tutor in Berlin, where he became friends with Johann Crüger. He served the Lutheran parish of Mittenwalde near Berlin (1651-1657) and the great St. Nicholas' Church in Berlin (1657-1666). Friederich William, the Calvinist elector, had issued an edict that forbade the various Protestant groups to fight each other. Although Gerhardt did not want strife between the churches, he refused to comply with the edict because he thought it opposed the Lutheran "Formula of Concord," which condemned some Calvinist doctrines. Consequently, he was r…
Go to person page >Translator: Henry Mills
Mills, Henry, D.D., son of John Mills, was born at Morriston, New Jersey, March 12, 1786, and educated at the New Jersey College, Princeton, where he graduated in 1802. After being engaged in teaching for some time at Morristown and elsewhere, he was ordained Pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Woodbridge, New Jersey, in 1816. On the opening of the Auburn Theological Seminary in 1821, he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Languages, from which he retired in 1854. He died at Auburn, June 10, 1867. In 1845 he published Horae Germanicae; A Version of German Hymns. This was enlarged in 1856. The translations are not well done, and very few are now in common use, although 18 and 9 doxologies were given in the Lutheran Ge…
Go to person page >Befiehl du deine Wege. P. Gerhardt. [Trust in God.] This hymn, which Lauxmann in Koch, viii. 392, calls "The most comforting of all the hymns that have resounded on Paulus Gerhardt's golden lyre, sweeter to many souls than honey and the honey-comb," appeared as No. 333 in the Frankfurt edition, 1656, of Crüger's Praxis pietatis melica. Thence in Wackernagel's edition of his Geistliche Lieder, No. 66, and Bachmann's edition, No. 72, in 12 stanzas of 8 lines, and included as No. 620 in the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851. It is an acrostic on Luther's version of Ps. xxxvii. 5, "Befiehl dem Herren deine Wege und hoffe auf ihn, er wirds wohl machen," formed by the initial words of the stanzas, those in Wackernagel’s edition being printed in blacker type.
The hymn soon spread over Germany, found its way into all the hymn-books, and ranks as one of the finest hymns of its class. Lauxmann relates that it was sung when the foundation stone of the first Lutheran church at Philadelphia was laid, May 2,1743, and again on Oct. 20, when the Father of the American Lutheran Church, Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, held the opening service.
Translation in common use:—
Commit thy way, confiding. In full by Dr. H. Mills in the Evangelical Review, Gettysburg, July, [1850, pp. 135-136], and his Horae Germanica, 1856, p. 172. His stanzas i., ii., vi., xii. were included in the Lutheran General Synod's Hymns, 1852, and i., ii., v., vi., xi., xii. in the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880.
-- Excerpt from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1892)
Notes
Befiehl du deine Wege. P. Gerhardt. [Trust in God.] This hymn, which Lauxmann in Koch, viii. 392, calls "The most comforting of all the hymns that have resounded on Paulus Gerhardt's golden lyre, sweeter to many souls than honey and the honey-comb," appeared as No. 333 in the Frankfurt edition, 1656, of Crüger's Praxis pietatis melica. Thence in Wackernagel's edition of his Geistliche Lieder, No. 66, and Bachmann's edition, No. 72, in 12 stanzas of 8 lines, and included as No. 620 in the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851. It is an acrostic on Luther's version of Ps. xxxvii. 5, "Befiehl dem Herren deine Wege und hoffe auf ihn, er wirds wohl machen," formed by the initial words of the stanzas, those in Wackernagel’s edition being printed in blacker type.
The hymn soon spread over Germany, found its way into all the hymn-books, and ranks as one of the finest hymns of its class. Lauxmann relates that it was sung when the foundation stone of the first Lutheran church at Philadelphia was laid, May 2,1743, and again on Oct. 20, when the Father of the American Lutheran Church, Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, held the opening service.
Translation in common use:—
Commit thy way, confiding. In full by Dr. H. Mills in the Evangelical Review, Gettysburg, July, [1850, pp. 135-136], and his Horae Germanica, 1856, p. 172. His stanzas i., ii., vi., xii. were included in the Lutheran General Synod's Hymns, 1852, and i., ii., v., vi., xi., xii. in the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880.
-- Excerpt from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1892)
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