Suggested tune: WÄR GOTT NICHT MIT UNS
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Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit. M. Luther. [Ps. cxxiv.] This version of Ps. cxxiv. was first published in the Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn, Wittenberg, 1524, in 3 stanzas of 7 lines, and thence Wackernagel, iii. p. 17. Also in Schircks's edition of Luther's Geistliche Lieder, 1854, p. 79, in the Unverfälschter Liedersegen,1851, No.250,&c.
Lauxmann, in Koch, viii. 115, relates that the Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony, having been comforted by the Superintendent Aquila with this hymn during his captivity after the battle of Mühlberg, 1547, on his release on May 12, 1552, sang the whole of it with grateful heart, as a thankoffering to God.
The translation in common use is:—
Had God not come, may Israel say. In full by .R. Massie, in his Martin Luther's Spiritual Songs, 1854, p. 35. Repeated in Reid's Praise Book, 1872, the Ohio Lutheran Hymnal, 1880, and by Dr. Bacon, in his Hymns of Martin Luther, 1884, p. 49.
Other translations are :—
(1) "If God were not upon our side." By Miss Fry, 1845, p. 96. (2) "Had not the Lord been with us then." By J. Anderson, 18 J 6, p. 34. (3) “Had not the
Lord been on our side." By Dr. J. Hunt, 1853, p. 62. (4) "Had God not been with us this time." By Dr. G. Macdonald, in the Sunday Magazine, 1867, p. 450. In his Exotics, 1876, p. 68, it begins "Were God not with us all the time," and is otherwise altered. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)