This is a Dutch hymn for confirmation by Huub Oosterhuis. CWB I sets it to a traditional Dutch tune, GELUKKIG IS HET LAND. The translation is by Anthony Barr.
The words and music are in this sample at Hymnary.
OCP retranslated the text slightly and used a setting by Timothy Smith.
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I believe you are mistaken that The Spirit of the Lord (aka Song of the Holy Spirit) is aka Our God Provides: they are completely different songs, (one focusing on the Spirit, the other on God’s providence) written by the same person (Huub Oosterhuis), translated by a different same person (Tony Barr), both using the same tune, so not different translations of the same text!
The tune, GELUKKIG IS HET LAND, belongs to a Dutch patriotic song that has nothing to do with either hymn text. There’s a tremendous version of this on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SPEkRDR4oHw
OCP included this hymn in their Journeysongs 2nd ed. CD collection and it is stylistically not that far removed from the just mentioned performance on YouTube (though not quite so grand!). Sadly, its not available on YouTube or from OCP anymore.
As much as I like the tune, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a good idea to use a tune from a well known patriotic song from another country to support a hymn text, even if the song isn’t well outside of the country of origin. It has always puzzled me that the popular US patriotic song “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (included in Journeysongs) is sung to a tune listed as AMERICA, but known here and the UK as “God, Save Our Gracious King”!
I will present a counter arguement of the hymn tune NOI VOGLIAM DIO from Italy, with the text “We Stand For God, And For His Glory”
It’s a very lovely patriotic marchy processional that we find in the Living Parish line of hymnals.
Thanks, Chris.
It’s no excuse but I’m just back from two weeks in Japan and I thought I would do a lot of posts quickly as drafts before I left, and publish them intermittently while away without checking on them further. I’m trying to figure out how I went down that incorrect rabbit hole. The text for “Our God Provides” is in this sample.
https://hymnary.org/hymn/JS2003/652
Having another look it gets even stranger because “The Spirit of the Lord” and “Song of the Holy Spirit” appear to be somewhat different translations by the same person of the same Dutch text.
I share you concern about patriotic songs in general and I fail to see what they are doing in hymnals at all, especially in this age of toxic Christian nationalism.
The possible caveat to that is that often the patriotic song has appropriated the pre-existing tune.
Indeed, the tune of “God Save the King” predates both the anthem and the American “hymn” but it is not called AMERICA anywhere sensible.
cheers
Geoff