Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

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Glorious things of thee are spoken

Author: John Newton (1779)
Tune: AUSTRIAN HYMN
Published in 1302 hymnals

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FlexScore
	Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

Piano/Organ
	For Love of Country

Choral
	Easter Hymn of Praise

Representative Text

1 Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God.
He whose Word cannot be broken
formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation's walls surrounded,
thou may'st smile at all thy foes.

2 See, the streams of living waters,
springing from eternal love,
well supply thy sons and daughters
and all fear of want remove.
Who can faint while such a river
ever flows their thirst to assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the Giver,
never fails from age to age.

3 'Round each habitation hov'ring,
see the cloud and fire appear
for a glory and a cov'ring,
showing that the Lord is near.
Thus deriving from their banner
light by night and shade by day,
safe they feed upon the manna
which He gives them on their way.

4 Savior, since of Zion's city
I through grace a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Thy name.
Fading is the worldling's pleasures,
all his boasted pomp and show;
solid joys and lasting treasures
none but Zion's children know.

Source: Psalms and Hymns to the Living God #416

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Author: John Newton

John Newton (b. London, England, 1725; d. London, 1807) was born into a Christian home, but his godly mother died when he was seven, and he joined his father at sea when he was eleven. His licentious and tumultuous sailing life included a flogging for attempted desertion from the Royal Navy and captivity by a slave trader in West Africa. After his escape he himself became the captain of a slave ship. Several factors contributed to Newton's conversion: a near-drowning in 1748, the piety of his friend Mary Catlett, (whom he married in 1750), and his reading of Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1754 he gave up the slave trade and, in association with William Wilberforce, eventually became an ardent abolitionist. After becoming a tide… Go to person page >

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Related Texts

First Line:	Glorious things of thee are spoken
Title:	Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
Author:	John Newton (1779)
Meter:	8.7.8.7 D
Language:	English
Notes:	Spanish translation: See "Glorias mil de ti se cuentan" by Juan de los Santos
Copyright:	Public Domain

Year A, Epiphany Season, Transfiguration Sunday
Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 20 (25)
This is recommended for Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 20 (25) by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81 and Lift Up Your Hearts: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs #286.
Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 20 (25)
Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 21 (26)
This is recommended for Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 21 (26) by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81 and Lift Up Your Hearts: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs #286.
Year A, Ordinary Time, Proper 24 (29)
Year B, Advent, First Sunday
This is recommended for Year B, Advent, First Sunday by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81 and Lift Up Your Hearts: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs #286.
Year B, Epiphany season, Epiphany of the Lord
Year B, Ordinary Time, Proper 13 (18)
This is recommended for Year B, Ordinary Time, Proper 13 (18) by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81.
Year B, Ordinary Time, Proper 13 (18)
Year B, Ordinary Time, Proper 27 (32)
This is recommended for Year B, Ordinary Time, Proper 27 (32) by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81 and Lift Up Your Hearts: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs #286.
Year C, Epiphany season, Second Sunday
This is recommended for Year C, Epiphany season, Second Sunday by 2 hymnal lectionary indexes including Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal #81 and Lift Up Your Hearts: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs #286.
Year C, Easter season, Fifth Sunday
Year C, Easter season, Sixth Sunday
Year C, Easter Season, Seventh Sunday

English

10 shown out of 833

Notes

Glorious things of Thee are spoken. J. Newton. [Church of Christ.] First published in the Olney Hymns, 1779, Bk. i., No. 60, in 5 stanzas of 8 lines, and entitled, "Zion, or the City of God," Is. xxxiii. 20, 21. It has attained to great popularity in all English-speaking countries, and ranks with the first hymns in the language. It is used, however, in various forms as follows:—
1. Original text in Snepp's Songs of Grace & Glory People's Hymnal.
2. A cento composed of stanzas i., ii. and v. This appeared in Cotterill's Selection, 1819, from whence it has passed into a great number of collections. It is by far the most popular arrangement of the hymn in use, and may be found in fifty or more hymnals, as in Hymnal Companion, No. 234, and sometimes with Cotterill’s slight alterations, as in the Rev. F. Pott's Hymns, &c, 1861-67.
3. A cento composed of stanzas i., iii. and v., given in Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Hymns, 1852, but not popular.
4. A cento, stanzas i., ii. and doxology in four lines, not by Newton, in the Cooke and Denton Hymnal, 1853.
5. A cento, in 4 stanzas of 4 lines, beginning, "Glorious things of old were spoken," is given in Isaac G. Smith's Hymn Book, 1855-57. It is thus composed: stanza i., Newton altered; ii., I. G. Smith; iii., Newton; iv., dox. from Cooke & Denton. This is the least successful of any arrangement.
6. The whole hymn revised by J. Keble for the Salisbury Hymn Book, 1857, and included therein, as No. 130, with the four-line doxology from Denton. This, with slight returns to the original in two places (stanzas i., v.), and the omission of the doxology, was repeated in the Sarum Hymnal (broken into two parts, pt. ii. beginning "Blessed city, holy nation), 1868; and a cento therefrom again altered, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines in T. Darling's Hymns, &c, edition 1887. Another cento, also with alterations, is given in the Hymnary, from which it passed into the New Mitre Hymnal, 1875.
7. Cento of stanzas i., ii., iv., v., unaltered as in the Book of Praise Hymnal, Thring's Collection, and others.
8. In the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Church Hymns, stanzas i.-iv. with slight alterations in stanzas i., ii., and iii.
In the American collections the same diversity of use prevails as in Great Britain. Sometimes the hymn is broken into two parts, with pt. ii. beginning, "Blest inhabitants of Zion." In addition other arrangements of minor importance are given in collections of less importance; but in most cases the original text is maintained. Stanzas i., ii., v., have been rendered into Latin by the Rev. R. Bingham, and included in his Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, "Dicta do te sunt miranda."

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

AUSTRIAN HYMN

All tunes published with 'Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken'^ top

For Leaders

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The opening line of this hymn quotes Psalm 87:3 “Glorious things of you are spoken, O city of God” (ESV). The theme of these stanzas is the universal church, and its story. The text begins with a vision of the new city of God (Hebrews 12:22) in the first two stanzas, and then looks back to the early journey of the Israelites, with references in the third stanza to cloud, fire, and manna (Exodus 13:21, 16:31). We are reminded through this of the long history God has with His people, and of the wonderful future awaiting those who are, through grace, members of God's family.

Text:

The title of Book I of the Olney Hymns, published in 1779 by John Newton and William Cowper, is “On Select Texts of Scripture,” containing hymns written on specific Scripture passages, arranged in biblical order. “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” written by Newton, is number 60 in this book. It is written on Isaiah 33:20-21, but there are plenty of clear references to other Scriptures, which Newton cited in footnotes, such as Psalm 87 (the first two lines of the hymn are nearly a direct quote of Ps. 87:3) and Isaiah 4:5-6 (which is closely paraphrased in the third stanza). This hymn has been called one of Newton's finest hymns, and it is certainly one of his most popular, along with “Amazing Grace” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.”

Three or four stanzas are sung, always including the first and second. Of the remaining three, the original fourth (beginning “Blest inhabitants of Zion”) is usually omitted, and then either the third (“Round each habitation”) or the fifth (“Savior, if of Zion's city”).

Tune:

The most common tune for this text is Franz Joseph Haydn's famous melody AUSTRIA (which is also called AUSTRIAN HYMN, GERMAN HYMN, HAYDN, or VIENNA). This association was a very strong one until after World War II. While it is still very common to sing Newton's text to Haydn's music, some hymnals have used other tunes, such as RUSTINGTON or ABBOT'S LEIGH.

AUSTRIA has had nationalist associations from its inception. Haydn was commissioned to write a national anthem for Austria after visiting England and bringing back a report of the great impact “God Save the King” had on the British public. His tune was the national anthem for Austria from its composition and first performance for the emperor's birthday in 1797 until the Austrian Republic was established in 1918 following World War I. It was used as a hymn tune in English-speaking countries from the first decade of the nineteenth century. The German national song “Deutschland über alles” (written in the mid-nineteenth century by Hoffmann von Fallersleben), paired to this tune, was used by the Nazis in World War II, and added some very painful associations to this music. The question of whether to banish this popular tune completely or retain it because of it pre-1940s history is well-answered by Paul Westermeyer: “Though it is … a tune that needs to be in hymnals for future generations, there are many circumstances where, because of its associations, this tune still should not and cannot be sung” (Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 700).

One tune with an interesting and related story is ABBOT'S LEIGH, which was written for Newton's text specifically as an alternate to AUSTRIA. During World War II, Cyril Taylor was in the village of Abbot's Leigh, near Bristol, England, working for the religious broadcasting department of the BBC. He wrote this tune on a Sunday morning in the spring of 1941, and it was introduced and popularized in Britain by its use in BBC radio broadcasts. It was published in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1950.

RUSTINGTON was written by C. Hubert H. Parry and named after the English village in which he spent the last years of his life. It first appeared in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book of 1897 with Benjamin Webb's hymn “Praise the rock of our salvation.”

When/Why/How:

This hymn is suitable for any service on the theme of the Church, such as a church anniversary or an ordination service, among others. For an alternate accompaniment for congregational singing, try the settings found in “Hymn Harmonizations by Hayes” (AUSTRIAN HYMN), “Festival Hymns for Organ, Brass, and Timpani—Set 5” (RUSTINGTON), or a festive version of “ABBOT'S LEIGH.” For a prelude or postlude based on the hymn's most common tune, AUSTRIAN HYMN, the collection “For Love of Country” contains a piano setting, and an easy organ fanfare can be found in “Nine Hymn Preludes.”

Tiffany Shomsky,
Hymnary.org

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Psalms and Hymns to the Living God (2023), p.473

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Instances

Instances (401 - 500 of 1302)

Hymns, Selected and Original, for Public and Private Worship, published by General Synod for the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 68th ed. (8th rev. ed.) #d224

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