I was asked to sing at church this Sunday. I have a CD of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" written by Robert Robinson (which has an interesting story attached to it). It was one of my grandmother's favorite hymns...either that or it's one I can still remember hearing her sing and it comforts me. At any rate, I found this CD and I like the arrangement. I started singing along without looking at the words because I've sang it long enough to have it mostly memorized. When me and the CD got to the second verse, I'm singing my heart out and I hear different words in the background. I stopped the music, looked at the little copy of the verses and see that they've changed one part of the verse completely! It should say "Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by Thy grace I come; and I hope by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home." That's been re-written in more modern terms. I don't think it conveys the same meaning the writer intended.
People who wrote the older hymns seemed to have more of a familiarity with the Bible and it's terminology which was translated into the hymns they wrote. Ebenezer means "stone of help" and was the name given to the stone that the prophet Samuel used as an altar when the Lord helped the Israelites in battle with the Philistines (1 Samuel 7). Capturing the emotion written into the songs by the authors would warrant today's singers knowing the verses and events that inspired the writer. If nothing else, I would imagine that curiosity over such an interesting phrase would cause the singer to go home and check out the definition of "Ebenezer" and learn a little history...maybe even research the instruction and meaning of altars in the Old Testament.
But changing the words to make it more palatable? I just don't know about that.
1 comment:
I'll really try to behave, but you've touched on something BIG, HUGE, to me about such as you just talked about.
We want to be more comfortable. God should make us more comfortable. There is something to fitting with the times, but also, yeah, there's these activist judges out there too that try too hard to fit the law with the times, their version.
There is something to the original just like you said. Often the content of the original author was tuned in better than many of us are today. God does want us to be happy, but true happiness lies with Him. We kind of hope He changed His mind. To seek renewed meaning is great, to change God isn't. That is what I don't trust about the new comfort zones lately.
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