Hymn Reflection: 하늘에 가득 찬 영광의 하나님 (Heaven is Full of Your Glory)
Words by: 김정준 (Jungjun Kim, 1914–1981)
Music by: 곽상수 (Sangsoo Kwak, 1923-)
Hymn Tune: 구원의 하나님
Hymnic Meter: 13.13.13.13.14.12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF29SOgxMUc
“Heaven is Full of Your Glory (하늘에 가득 찬 영광의 하나님)” is a Trinitarian worship hymn in the twenty-first Century Korean hymnal (21세기 찬송가), edited by Kim Jungjun (1914–1981). Kim was a pastor, professor, and the Old Testament theologian. The 1967 reorganized Gaepyun Chansongka (hymnal) was written by Rev. Kim Jungjun at the request of the hymnal committee and composed by Professor Kwak Sang-soo (1923–2013) who served the chief director of Korean Association of Organists as the first pipe organist and a member of hymnal committee.[1]
Based upon John 4:23–24, this hymn is written as a prayer for the worshipers who praise the Triune God. Its lyrics express the attitude of a worshiper in the form of confession and a desire to let one overcome with faith the sinful world. Kim believed that the essence of worship is that believers communicate with God in the grace and truth through the mediator Jesus Christ. Worshipers should seek compassion and worship with humility (Luke 18:13). The hymn demonstrates this idea in the last line of each stanza, ‘Please accept our worship.’ The lyrics of hymn for praise and worship are structurally stable and made a good sense of prayer.[2]
Analysis of Hymn
The first stanza refers to God the Father. He is glorious, full of the glory of the heavens, and the honorable God of the Earth. Because of translation differences in poetry and poetic devices, it is difficult to compare with English and Korean version. But, in the Korean hymn, Kim uses antithetical parallelism to describe the glory of God.
The second stanza implies what Jesus has done; its lyrics contain a petition to give peace to God of love and mercy and to forgive sins and transgressions in comparison with the content of worship and praise in the first stanza. There is a problem of nuance with translation; the Korean hymn describes God of salvation is abundant of grace, but English version repeats the idea by using abundant and full. This stanza also has a type of repetition, antanaclasis, in the use of over flowing and abundant.
In the third stanza, believers are empowered by the work of the Holy Spirit. He builds the fainted heart firmly, gives wisdom in the weak mind, makes them live in truth, and courage by the word of God. The last stanza refers to the worshipers who sing the blessed joy of life in which the word of the Lord is a force and a new hope.
Overall Evaluation
In stanza 1 and stanza 2, the first line and second line are a perfect parallel, which makes a sense of stability of this hymn. Kim uses rhyme at the end of the first and second lines of stanzas 1, 2, and 3; but avoids rhyme in the fourth stanza.
Hymnic meter for the Korean text dictates English text. Korean text ends with “God;” but English text ends with “ours.” This demonstrates how difficult it is to translate poetry. In addition, line three in stanza 3, the Korean text ends with “love” while the word of love is absent from the English translation, instead adds life, which changes the meaning substantially.
This key of this hymn is D major and harmonizes a simple chord procession. The first phrase is I–V; the second phrase is I-V; the third phrase starts with I, but utilizes V/V, vi, IV, and ii before returning to I. Kwak surprises the congregations by beginning the last phrase with a vi, which moves through dominant tonal era before returning to the tonic. The whole piece of chord progression looks balanced: I–V–vi–V–I.
[1] Sown K. Oh, A Study of New Century Korean Hymnal, (GoYang: Bible House, 2015), 63–4.
[2] Sangman Park, Analytic Research on the Hymnal of Korea, (Seoul: J&A Music, 2008), 287.
