Brent Chambers

Brent Sinclair Chambers (b. Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, 1948) composed this song after experiencing an evening of ethnic music and dance in 1977. Chambers attended the Bible College of New Zealand and Auckland University and then became a self-employed painting contractor and song writer. He has written or co-written over five hundred songs, a number of which have been recorded or published. He based the text on Psalm 22:3, 22 and Psalm 145:7, though the words of the first line could also have been taken from Psalm 52:9b. He named his tune CELEBRATION, and both text and music were published in Scripture in Song (1977), one of the most important Scripture-chorus collections (initially from New Zealand) of the 1970s. The vocable "lai," suggested for the descant line on the repetition of the music, can be replaced with combinations of "ah" and "alleluia." Other stanzas can be added as well.

--www.hymnary.org/hymn/PsH/160