All people that on earth do dwell

‘There is only One who deserves the title "God"’. Founded on this conviction, one of the shortest Psalms has also become one of the bestknown, for a variety of reasons. It serves at least in part the same purpose in worship as Ps 95; it is widely used in liturgy as Jubilate Deo; and its Genevan tune has accompanied both this text and the Watts paraphrase Before the LORD’s eternal throne (208). It was decided not to change the archaic first line of William Kethe’s version—a small indication of how well-established it is among English-speaking Christians, including its use at many civic and national occasions. Many hymnals place it at no.1, for other than alphabetical reasons, and it is referred to in English literature from Shakespeare onwards. It first appeared in 3 Psalm collections in 1561, 2 in Geneva and one in London. One of these, and a slightly later Scots Psalter, attributes this version to ‘W.Ke.’, and Wm Kethe is now accepted as almost certainly its author. Jasper Ridley suggests that he wrote it on hearing of the death of Queen Mary (Bloody Mary’s Martyrs, 2001). For J R Watson (The English Hymn, 1997) the very word ‘people’ is crucial, signalling ‘the end of a priestly, hierarchical religion’; this version, ‘together with its original tune … has remained a living part of the Protestant tradition’. For Erik Routley (Hymns and the Faith, 1955) ‘The 100th Psalm is one of the shortest and one of the greatest … Its words are few but its vision is limitless, and if we except the 23rd it is, because of this immortal rendering, the most-sung of the Psalms, the most universal in its appeal, the most popular expression of world-wide praise’. Small variations appear in different books; those adopted here are from HTC. Keble included his own re-write in The Psalter in English Verse, recasting 7 of Kethe’s 16 lines. Many hymnals conclude with the magnificent LM doxology, ‘To Father, Son and Holy Ghost …’, but what to some is a climactic Christian enrichment, to Scots and others can seem ‘an intrusion, and sometimes an extremely irritating superfluity’ (M Patrick). However, all versions express the Psalm’s central affirmations that ‘The LORD is God … the LORD is good’, as the basis for our joy and praise. And this one, opening majestically with the globally inclusive ‘All’, strikingly repeats the word in every stz. The OLD HUNDREDTH tune by Louis Bourgeois, to which the words are now almost invariably sung, was first printed with the version of Ps 134 in the French Genevan Psalter, enlarged edn 1551. But Kethe evidently wrote his words for this tune, and the name became established by their joint appearance in the ‘Old Version’ of Sternhold and Hopkins. Phrases of the tune are clearly borrowed; Millar Patrick quotes G A Crawford (1881) as saying ‘its component parts are found over and over again in various combinations, and, while one of the most effective, it is also perhaps one of the least original tunes in the Genevan Psalter’. To Bourgeois we certainly owe its adaptation and final structure. Musicians such as Purcell and Britten have enriched it with their own variations within longer works, while Vaughan Williams arranged the 4 stzs and doxology for organ, brass and choir. See M Patrick, Four centuries of Scottish Psalmody, 1949, pp22 ff, and notes to no.191

b ?Scotland c1530, d Dorset 1594. His early years are obscure; he is known to have been active in 1559, and exiled in Frankfurt (1555) and Geneva (1557) during Queen Mary’s reign. He may have worked on the (English) Geneva Bible of 1560. Rector of Childe Okeford, Dorset (1561–93), when he may have been active elsewhere since the parish had two clergy; there are altogether too many ‘maybe’s’ and ‘probably’s’ to form a clear picture of his career. He supplied 25 metrical Psalms for the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561, all of which (with others) were included in the Scottish Psalter of 1564–65. He was also a writer of secular ballads. No.100A.