The Apostle Who Boasted Like a Fool

Those of you who are anglophiles may recognize the music to The Lord Has Spoken To My Lord—Psalm 110, though you probably know it with different words. William Blake wrote “And did those feet in ancient time” in 1804, as a part of the preface to his epic poem Milton. The poem is odd and fantastical, beginning with Jesus Christ appearing in England during His earthly life and concluding with a call to build a utopian society. It was largely unknown until its republication in a collection of patriotic verse in 1916, at the low point of Britain’s morale during the Great War. The editor of that collection asked the composer Hubert Parry to do a setting with “”suitable, simple music to Blake’s stanzas – music that an audience could take up and join in.” The result was the hymn tune JERUSALEM, now one of Great Britain’s unofficial anthems. Though replete with Biblical imagery—the line “bring me my chariot of fire” referencing 2 Kings 2:11 inspired the title of the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire—the millenarian text which imagines a “new Jerusalem” made by human hands is inappropriate for a worship service. Thankfully, the editors of the Book of Psalms for Worship re-purposed Parry’s stirring music to fit the text of Psalm 110. Now this gem of English music can serve as a vehicle for the Word of God instead of the fantasy with which it is usually associated. —Henry C. Haffner