Israel's shepherd, hear our prayer

Like 78 but unlike 79, this Psalm was assigned to Christopher Idle during preparations for Praise!; it was completed, after some discussion of ‘problem lines’, at Peckham in 1996, sung at the Church Society’s conference in 1998, and published that year in the sampler for the book, Praise! Preview. The imagery of the shepherd and the vine is familiar and vivid; the role of the son (v17, stz 5) is trickier, since translations diverge widely. This version, which moves into Christian language at that point, has two other unusual features. It reflects the shape of the Psalm with a refrain which grows richer with each repeat (vv3,7,19), and it consequently requires two separate tunes. The remarkable similarity of the chosen tunes (both in 3/4 time, in C major and starting on G) struck the writer as he began to sort his draft lines into some order. Confusingly, WELLS is both a name for other tunes and a tune with many names. One such, ST PETERSBURG, derives from T H Tscherlitzky, organist of that city, whose Choralbuch noted in 1825 that the music came from a liturgical piece by Dmitri Bortnianski dated 1822. It became popular there, sounding on the bells of the church of St Peter and St Paul. Other sources attribute the melody to a Russian folk-song or a German military tune. It was first used in England (in LM) in a Collection of Psalms and Hymns edited by Montague Burgoyne and J Macdonald Harris in 1827. The origins of BE STILL AND KNOW are also less than certain. David Peacock arranged it for the 1982 Jesus Praise, having met it in the undated (1970s?) Prepare ye the way, ed by Dale Garratt for the NZ ‘Scripture in Song’. It became well-known through its inclusion, arranged by Roland Fudge, in MP 1983 and subsequent editions. This arrangement by David Trafford appears in Baptist Praise and Worship, 1991. Isaac Watts’ 3-part version Great Shepherd of thine Israel repeats a refrain 4 times: ‘Turn us to thee, thy love restore,/ we shall be saved, and sigh no more’; one of these survives in PHRW, emended to ‘… and blessed once more’. Having introduced the church in stz 2 and the Son of God in stz 11, Watts begins his final one, ‘O for his sake attend our cry,/ shine on our churches lest they die’.

b Bromley, Kent 1938. Eltham Coll, St Peter’s Coll Oxford (BA, English), Clifton Theol Coll Bristol; ordained in 1965 to a Barrow-in-Furness curacy. He spent 30 years in CofE parish ministry, some in rural Suffolk, mainly in inner London (Peckham, Poplar and Limehouse). Author of over 300 hymn texts, mainly Scripture based, collected in Light upon the River (1998) and Walking by the River (2008), Trees along the River (2018), and now appearing in some 300 books and other publications; see also the dedication of EP1 (p3) to his late wife Marjorie. He served on 5 editorial groups from Psalm Praise (1973) to Praise!; his writing includes ‘Grove’ booklets Hymns in Today’s Language (1982) and Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (2000), and The Word we preach, the words we sing (Reform, 1998). He edited the quarterly News of Hymnody for 10 years, and briefly the Bulletin of the Hymn Society, on whose committee he served at various times between 1984 and 2006; and addressed British and American Hymn Socs. Until 1996 he often exchanged draft texts with Michael Perry (qv) for mutual criticism and encouragement. From 1995 he was engaged in educational work and writing from home in Peckham, SE London, until retirement in 2003; following his return to Bromley after a gap of 40 years, he has attended Holy Trinity Ch Bromley Common and Hayes Lane Baptist Ch. Owing much to the Proclamation Trust, he also belongs to the Anglican societies Crosslinks and Reform, together with CND and the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. A former governor of 4 primary schools, he has also written songs for school assemblies set to familiar tunes, and (in 2004) Grandpa’s Amazing Poems and Awful Pictures. His bungalow is smoke-free, alcohol-free, car-free, gun-free and TV-free. Nos.13, 18, 21, 23A, 24B, 27B, 28, 31, 35, 36, 37, 48, 50, 68, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 95, 102, 108, 109, 114, 118, 119A, 121A, 125, 128, 131, 145B, 157, 176, 177, 193*, 313*, 333, 339, 388, 392, 420, 428, 450, 451, 463, 478, 506, 514, 537, 548, 551, 572, 594, 597, 620, 621, 622, 636, 668, 669, 693, 747, 763, 819, 914, 917, 920, 945, 954, 956, 968, 976, 1003, 1012, 1084, 1098, 1138, 1151, 1158, 1159, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1221, 1227, 1236, 1237, 1244, 1247, 5017, 5018, 5019, 5020.