Psalter Hymnal (Gray) ‎#483

483. How Great Thou Art

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In order to use resources from the Hope Publishing Company, you must reside in the United States or Canada. Hope Publishing Company owns or administers the contents in these territories.
You may download one copy of this selection for your own personal use. To make any further copies or to perform the work you must get permission from Hope Publishing Company or belong to and report the copying activity to CCLI, LicenSing or OneLicense.net. By selecting "I Agree" you are verifying that you reside in the U.S. or Canada and will only legally use this selection.

Text Information

• First Line: O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
• Title: How Great Thou Art
• Author: Stuart K. Hine (1949)
• Refrain First Line: Then sings my soul
• Meter: 11 10 11 10 with refrain
• Language: English
• Publication Date: 1987
• Scripture:
  Psalm 121
  ;
  1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
  ;
  Hebrews 12:1-2
  ;
  1 Thessalonians 4:17
  ;
  Hebrews 12:2
  ;
  Romans 5:11
• Topic: Doxologies; Epiphany & Ministry of Christ; Praise & Adoration; Return of Christ; Suffering of Christ; Redemption; Atonement; Creation; Majesty of God; Salvation
• Copyright: © 1953, 1981, Manna Music, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
• ONE LICENSE: 198390; 97037

Tune Information

• Name: O STORE GUD
• Harmonizer: Stuart K. Hine (1949)
• Meter: 11 10 11 10 with refrain
• Key: B♭ Major
• Source: Swedish folk melody
• Copyright: Text and music © 1953, 1981, Manna Music, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Text Information:

Scripture References:
all st. = Ps.121
st. 3 = Heb. 12: 1-2
st. 4 = 1 Thess. 4: 16-17

This text has an international history. Its first source is a Swedish text by Carl G. Boberg ("O store Gud"–"O great God"), who wrote its nine stanzas one summer evening in 1885 after he had admired the beauty of nature and the sound of church bells. Boberg published the text in Mönsterås Tidningen (1886). Several years later, after hearing his text sung to a Swedish folk tune, Boberg published text and tune in Sanningsvittnet (April 16, 1891), the weekly journal he edited.

Manfred von Glehn, an Estonian, prepared a German translation of the text in 1907, which became the basis for a Russian translation by Ivan S. Prokhanoff in 1912. The Russian translation first appeared in the booklet Kimvali ("Cymbals") and then in the larger volume The Songs of a Christian, published in 1922 with support from Prokhanoffs friends in the American Bible Society (reprinted in 1927). Several English translations also appeared in the early twentieth century, but these had limited exposure.

The Russian text came to the attention of Stuart Wesley Keene Hine (b. London, England, 1899; d. Somerset, England, 1989) when he and his wife were missionaries in the Ukraine; they often sang it together as a duet. Earlier, Hine had served in the British Army in France during World War I and then entered the Methodist ministry. Starting in 1923 he was a missionary in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Russia. In 1939 he returned to England and ministered to displaced persons who had come from eastern European countries. From 1950-1959 he continued weekly meetings with various Slav immigrants in Earls Court. Hine wrote evangelistic tracts as well as a number of popular hymns, of which "How Great Thou Art" is best known, and the book Not You, But God: A Testimony to God's Faithfulness (1982).

Hine prepared the English translation from the Russian: stanzas 1 and 2, while he and his wife worked amidst the impressive scenery of the Carpathian Mountains; stanza 3, while they were involved with village evangelism; and stanza 4 in 1948, while they ministered to displaced persons in England. The complete English text and its Swedish tune were published in 1949 in the Russian missions magazine Grace and Peace. Because much of Boberg's original text was lost in the multiple translations, the English text in modern hymnals is usually credited to Hine. The hymn gained great popularity after George Beverly Shea began singing it in the Billy Graham Crusades, beginning with the Toronto Crusade of 1955.

Hine's text vividly combines a sense of awe of nature and of its Creator (see also Ps. 8) with the New Testament gospel of Christ's atoning death and glorious return.

Liturgical Use:
Many appropriate times in Christian worship.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Tune Information:

Originally in triple meter, the Swedish tune O STORE GUD is in bar form (AAB). The first section has a very limited range of four notes; the more meditative stanzas give way to a dramatic refrain with an expanded range. Sing in parts and observe some rhythmic freedom in the last line of the refrain, preferably only after stanza 4 (unless George Beverly Shea is the soloist!).

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook