How Many Are Your Works, Lord

Representative Text

1. You laid the earth’s foundation;
its lines to You are known.
You know what holds its footings;
You laid its cornerstone.
You gave the sea its boundaries
And said, You proud waves, halt!
How many are Your works, Lord!
In wisdom You made all.

2. You give command each morning;
You show the dawn its place.
You journey to the sea springs;
the gates of death You’ve faced.
You comprehend earth’s vast expanse,
Where light and darkness dwell.
How many are Your works, Lord!
In wisdom You excel.

3. Snow’s storehouses You’ve entered;
You know the lightning’s home,
The place where east winds come from,
the path for every storm.
You drench the desert wasteland
and make it sprout with grass.
How many are Your works, Lord!
Your wisdom, O how vast!

4. You’re Father to each raindrop;
You give birth to the frost.
You lead the constellations;
not one of them is lost.
You know the laws of sun and stars;
o’er earth You set Your reign.
How many are Your works, Lord!
Your wisdom is made plain.

5. The clouds obey Your bidding;
their water jars You spill.
You give man’s heart its wisdom,
his mind with knowledge fill.
You hunt prey for the lioness,
provide the ravens’ food.
How many are Your works, Lord,
So wise and great and good!

Author: Susan H. Peterson

Born: Oc­to­ber 17, 1950, Port An­ge­les, Wash­ing­ton. Died: Ju­ly 23, 2004, Per­al­ta, New Mex­i­co. Susan was the se­cond of two girls in the fam­i­ly. Her fa­ther worked for the Na­tion­al Park Ser­vice, so Su­san en­joyed grow­ing up in Na­tion­al Parks and His­tor­ic Sites across Amer­i­ca. She did her un­der­grad­u­ate work at Stan­ford Un­i­ver­si­ty and earned a BS in ma­the­ma­tics in 1972. The next year she took a one-year grad­u­ate pro­gram at Mult­no­mah School of the Bi­ble in Port­land, Or­e­gon, and re­ceived a Cer­tif­i­cate of Bi­ble up­on com­ple­tion. She de­cid­ed not to pur­sue a ca­reer in com­put­er sci­ence, as she had orig­in­al­ly in… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: You laid the earth's foundation
Title: How Many Are Your Works, Lord
Author: Susan H. Peterson (1998)
Meter: 7.6.7.6 D
Language: English
Copyright: Released to the public domain

Tune

LANCASHIRE (Smart)

Henry T. Smart (PHH 233) composed the tune in 1835 for use at a missions festival at Blackburn, Lancashire, England. For that festival, which celebrated the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in England, the tune was set to Reginald Heber's (PHH 249) “From Greenland's Icy Mountains.”…

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The Cyber Hymnal #2535
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The Cyber Hymnal #2535

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