Praise the Lord, You Heav’ns Adore Him CWB II 583

This is an anonymous c18 text based on Psalm 148, although the third verse is by Edward Osler.

The triumphant nature of texts like this give me pause. The Psalms rarely come from a position of power, so they work there. When Christianity is a persecuted sect they make sense as an apocalyptic statement. When they originate in Christendom or empire they are problematic.

Further, when set to Haydn’s AUSTRIA, it is a major concern. I know this was a hymn tune used for this text before it was associated with Nazi Germany, but you can understand why for some years post WW2 it was set to HYFRYDOL and HYMN TO JOY instead. This post covers some of the issues of AUSTRIA as a hymn tune.

The text below is the version from CWB II, where “ye” is modernised and a few textual tweaks are introduced. It may be that the editors of CWB II just picked idiosyncratic texts for a lot of these old hymns, but I suspect their new editorial influence from the frequency with which there are small variants on the most commonly available versions. This is probably a good thing.

Praise the Lord: you heav’ns, adore him;
Praise him, angels in the height;
Sun and moon, rejoice before him;
praise him, all you stars and light.
Praise the Lord, for he has spoken;
worlds his mighty voice obeyed.
Laws which never shall be broken
for their guidance he has made.


Praise the Lord, for he is glorious;
never shall his promise fail.
God has made his saints victorious;
sin and death shall not prevail.
Praise the God of our salvation.
hosts on high, his pow’r proclaim.
Heav’n and earth and all creation
praise and glorify his name.


Worship, honour, glory, blessing,
Lord, we offer as our gift.
Young and old, your praise expressing,
Our glad songs to you we lift.
All the saints in heav’n adore You;
we would join their glad acclaim;
As your angels serve before you,
so on earth we praise your name.

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