806. I'll Praise My Maker (Psalm 146)

1 I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers.
My days of praise shall ne'er be past
while life and thought and being last,
or immortality endures.

2 How happy they whose hopes rely
on Israel's God, who made the sky
and earth and seas with all their train;
whose truth forever stands secure,
who saves the oppressed and feeds the poor,
and none shall find God's promise vain.

3 The Lord pours eyesight on the blind;
the Lord supports the fainting mind
and sends the laboring conscience peace.
God helps the stranger in distress,
the widowed and the parentless,
and grants the prisoner sweet release.

4 I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers.
My days of praise shall ne'er be past
while life and thought and being last,
or immortality endures.

Text Information
First Line: I'll praise my Maker while I've breath
Title: I'll Praise My Maker (Psalm 146)
Author: Isaac Watts (1719)
Adapter: John Wesley (1736, alt.)
Meter: 8.8.8.8.8.8
Language: English
Publication Date: 2013
Scripture: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Topic: Creation; Healing; Living and Dying in Christ (4 more...)
Tune Information
Name: OLD 113TH
Composer (attributed to): Matthäus Greiter (1525)
Harmonizer: V. Earle Copes (1963)
Meter: 8.8.8.8.8.8
Key: D Major
Copyright: Harm. © 1964 Abingdon Press (admin. The Copyright Company)


Text Information:

This paraphrase of Psalm 146 was a great favorite of John Wesley: it appeared in his first hymn collection in 1737 (published in Charleston, South Carolina) and was on his lips when he died. The 16th-century tune to which it is set here is the one Watts had in mind for it.


Media
Audio recording: Audio (MP3)
More media are available on the text authority and tune authority pages.

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