159 & 530 both use "the great I Am"

530 A Glad New Song

Soon I shall sing the glad, new song,

Of Moses and the Lamb,

With all the sainted hosts above,

Before the great I Am.

159 Wondrous Love

To God and to the Lamb,

I will sing; I will sing;

Who is the great I Am,

While millions join the theme,

I will sing.

These "I AM" uses appear to me to have a double reference. First, to God's name as given to Moses on the mountain, from the burning bush (not familiar with this? pick up a Bible and start reading Exodus -- some spots are a bit hard but overall it's a ripping good story)
Exodus 3:14
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. (kjv)

So, in this case, I AM is a translation/explanation of the divine name. The Hebrew could also be rendered into English as: I am who I am, I am what I am, I will be who/what I will be, I will be whatever I will be!

I'm afraid I've loaned out my Jewish Torah commentary (Torah = first five books of the Judeo/Christian scripture; Exodus is book two.) so I can't give you the fuller treatment of this.

So on to second reference: picking up on the name of God, the writers of these songs doubtless also thought of Jesus and the "I am" saying given to us in John's Gospel, e.g. "I am the door", "I am the true vine", "I am the good shepherd", etc

(... also "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." Interesting to me that even the most literalist of Bible interpreters do not imagine that Jesus was made of wood and had a handle, or had roots and leaves and you could pick grapes from him, yet the thought that this statement might also be metaphorical is seen as gravest heresy. For the record, it is my experience and belief that Jesus is indeed the way, and countless Buddhists, Hindus, aboriginal peoples, etc are faithfully following in the way without the least thought of Jesus. Thankfully, God is not limited by our logic.)

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34b St. Thomas (169 Dartmouth) -- Where does the name "Jehovah" come from?

Jehovah is the sov’reign God,

The universal King.

"Jehovah" is used, as the name of God, here in 34b St. Thomas (the same words also appear in 169 Dartmouth with an additional verse) and with eight other tunes in the 91 revision.

These are words by Isaac Watts. "Jehovah" appears first in the 16th century, in latin and spelled then "Ihouah" This is the form that appears in the Geneva Bible; the King James has shifted the spelling to "Jehovah."

And it's all a mistake.

So here's the deal -- the Hebrew Bible gives us the consonants for the name of God, usually transliterated as YHWH. This is the sacred 'tetragrammaton' -- so sacred that ultra-orthodox Jews would never type it into a computer because anyone reading this and hitting the delete button would violate a duty to preserve every writing of this name. But it's only the consonants. For many centuries Hebrew writing only recorded consonants, not vowels. Later, a system of 'pointing,' small marks added around the consonants, was devised to record the vowels. But long before this, the name of God had become far too sacred to pronounce out loud. Instead, one would substitute the word adonai (lord). So... to remind readers of this, the vowels for adonai were put with the letters of the sacred name.

Jerome, translating scripture into Latin (the Vulgate) understood this and put in Adonai, but then later, western Christian scholars didn't get it, and assumed the vowels belonged to the name of God. Reading them together produced the name "Jehovah" (the J standing in for Latin I representing the Hebrew sound of Y).

Today, most scholars accept the conjecture that the name of God would have been something like "Yahweh"  Some of us old sticks-in-the-mud still prefer to say "Adonai."

31t Ninety-Third Psalm -- what is 'the topmost stone'

Grace all the work shall crown

Through everlasting days;

It lays in heav’n the topmost stone,

And well deserves our praise.

What is "the topmost stone"?  I don't know. I'm not quickly thinking of any specific Bible verses, and a search of the KJV doesn't find 'topmost' or 'top most' (and I haven't scanned the 417 matches to 'stone.')

So, just thinking about it, it makes one think of either a keystone in an arch -- the topmost stone that allows the arch to stand and be strong -- or just the capstone or highest bit of a building. Note that 'grace' is not itself the topmost stone, but rather it is grace that places the topmost stone in heaven. The fulfillment of heaven is the work of grace. So, anyone want to point out a reference or meaning that I'm missing?

When singing this song, I invite you to ponder that grace is always scandalous -- it is defined by people getting some good they don't deserve.

Philip Doddridge was a non-conformist minister, a contemporary of Isaac Watts. Ten tunes in the 1991 book have words by him. His 400 some hymns were mostly written to put the content of his sermons into singable form, to immediately reinforce the message he was bringing to his congregants--a wise teacher.

I'm not seeing any particular connection between these words and the 93rd Psalm of the tune name (the words precede the tune), but here's the Psalm if anyone wants to look for themselves:

Psalm 93

¹The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved;

²your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.

³The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.

⁴More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord!

⁵Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.

30b Prospect "What tim'rous worms"

Why should we start and fear to die?
What tim’rous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate to endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

These words (vs.1) and vs.3 are also used in 111b and 275b, in each case with a new chorus added.

Don't you just love 'timorous worms'?

The Biblical references I find seem to use worms as objects of disgust and worthlessness rather than a character type. (see below).

The gist of these verses from Watts is that death is terrifying, even though we're supposed to know better (it's the 'gate to endless joy'). But this terror may be eased, banished in fact, by a direct experience of the presence of Jesus (O if my Lord would come and meet...).

Certainly this had a powerful literal meaning in a time that did not deny, hide, and hide from death in the way we do today in this country. It's also not at all bad in a more daily, metaphoric sense -- even though in our heads we may know and believe in the joy of letting go of ego, 'dying to self' we still draw back from it. Only concrete, direct experiences of grace seem to coax us, step by step, into the fulness of life connected to all creation and not limited by our own pettiness.

Job 25.6:

How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

Psalm 22.6:

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Isaiah 41.14:

Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.