26, (& 107) Isaac Watts / Where is Samaria?

My spirit looks to God alone	26 Samaria
	107 Russia

These words are by Isaac Watts. Samaria's two verses appear to encompass four original verses; Russia only uses the first two.

I've been singing hymns by Isaac Watts as long as I can remember. His words are found in many (possibly all) protestant hymnals. (Our current UCC hymnal has 14 Watts pieces. The Pilgrim Hymnal I grew up with had 18, the just published Lutheran (ELCA) hymnal has 10).

Unless I lost count, the 1991 Edition has Watts words to 144 tunes -- I have no idea how many of these are separate hymns and how many are multiple uses of the same words.

Isaac Watts
English Nonconformist pastor and hymnwriter
Born	July 17,1674 Southampton, England
Died	November 25,1748

"Samaria" So far, Google has led me to four or five towns named Samaria. Perhaps others existed in the past, or perhaps the name refers directly to the Biblical Samaria.

Samaria is the region that was the Northern Kingdom of Israel (after the reign of king Solomon the Israelites divided into two kingdoms.) When that kingdom was overrun (721 BCE), many of the people were deported, and Assyrians settled there, but they continued a form of worship based on the Torah (the first five books of the bible) as their sacred text. Over time their religion became more and more separated from that of Judah, the southern kingdom (itself overrun 135 years later.) So the Samaritans and the Jews in the time of Jesus had a mutual dislike -- the intense bad feelings that only estranged family can create. The point of the parable of the "Good Samaritan" is not that we should be helpful people, but that the Samaritan is neighbor and "Love your neighbor as yourself" applies even to those you despise. (Luke 10.25-37)