O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing

Being raised in a very conservative Presbyterian church in Korea, I had been forced to sing only hymns which sounded very old and dead to me. So, this roused in me a sense of antipathy against singing hymns to some degree and I did not get along with it. Especially, one hymn that I did not like the most was “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” because the text of it seemed weird and creepy to me, which might also be the limitation of translation. Whenever I sung the hymn, I could not help but thinking of a monster which has a thousand mouths. After the MAW class of Congregational Song, now I know the importance of hymns as a Christian heritage and this hymn is one of the best hymns to sing of who God is. I could not sing and worship God with this song when I was not aware of its meaning.

Origin

Charles Wesley, who was one of the greatest hymn-writers, had written over six thousand hymns. One of those several thousand hymns, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” was specially written by him in 1739 to celebrate the first anniversary of his conversion. Wesley wanted to celebrate each of his spiritual birthdays by writing a hymn of praise to God, and the first one seems to have performed well in its role. The original poem consisted of 18 stanzas while most hymnals use only some of them, such as stanzas 7 through 12. Wesley, as far as is known, gleaned the title of this texts from Peter Boehler, who was a Moravian and said to Wesley, “Had I a thousand tongues, I would praise God with them all.” Also, the text of this hymn includes his own spiritual experience. When he had been ill in bed fearing of death, his brother and some friends visited him and sang a hymn. After they left, one beautiful phrase stuck him to the heart, which has been woven into the third verse of the hymn: Jesus! The name that charms our fears that bids our sorrows cease. With this autobiographical text partly and many biblical allusions such as Psalm 145, Luke 4, Isaiah 61, and Acts 3, to name a few, this hymn has been known as great favorite hymn.

Tune: AZMON

The tune AZMON was adapted by Lowell Mason from a melody composed by Carl G. Glaser in 1828. In the U.S., the 1839 arrangement of the hymn tune by Lowell is commonly sung, while the British often use the tune RICHMOND. Mason released a duple-meter version for the first time but later changed it to triple meter. Interestingly, Mason picked up an obscure and unfamiliar name for AZMON, which is the name of a city south of Canaan, and appears in Numbers 34:4. AZMON is still not well-known as the name of biblical city, but is very popular as the tune name of “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”