John Newton

Look on Zion, the city of our appointed festivals! Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, an immovable tent, whose stakes will never be pulled up, and none of whose ropes will be broken. But there the Lord in majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams, where no galley with oars can go, nor stately ship can pass. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our ruler, the Lord is our king; he will save us.

            Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided; even the lame will fall to plundering.
And no inhabitant will say, ‘I am sick’; the people who live there will be forgiven their iniquity.
Isaiah 33:2022; 24

 Glories of Your Name Are Spoken  LBW 358

 1    Glories of your name are spoken, Zion, city of our God;
     He whose word cannot be broken formed you for his own abode.
      On the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake your sure repose?
      With salvation’s walls surrounded, you may smile at all your foes.

2    See, the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love,
      well supply your sons and daughters, and all fear of want remove.
      Who can faint, while such a river ever will their thirst 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 God 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 your name.
      Fading are the worldlings’ pleasures, all their boasted pomp and show;
      solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know.

Text: John Newton, 1725-1807, alt. Tune: Austria, Franz Joseph Haydn

John Newton is better known for writing another hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton began life as a slaver, but came to faith, and the ordained clergy, late.  He took the words for this hymn from Isaiah 33 and set them to a Franz Haydn tune called “Austria” (AKA the German national anthem.) But that tune was written as a hymn by Haydn, who later wrote of it; “When I thought of God, my heart was so full of joy the notes just flew off the page. As I now have a cheerful heart, I can serve Him joyfully!” This is a sentiment John Newton, who discovered joy in his own serving,  would have recognized. 

Many hymnals often omit the final verse, deeming it too out of character with the rest of the hymn.  Our LBW restored the fourth verse, and rightfully so.  The compilers of the LBW could see that Newton had the Exodus journey in mind and that the journey of the Exodus did not really end at the Promised Land; that was a mere way-station. Knowing the life Newton repented of, how he had tasted the bitter pleasures of the world but later embraced the treasures of God's Kingdom, for the author of Amazing Grace, embracing his inheritance as a child of God, much preferred the joy of Zion!

Prayer: Be with us, Lord, as we live in the firm promise of your presence and love. May HYour promise bring joy to our hearts, our lives, our serving and to all those around us!  Amen.