Hail to the Lord's Anointed

Lyrics

Hail to the Lord's Anointed,
great David's greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
his reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
to set the captive free,
to take away transgression,
and rule in equity.

He comes, with succour speedy,
to those who suffer wrong;
to help the poor and needy,
and bid the weak be strong;
to give them songs for sighing,
their darkness turn to light,
whose souls, condemned and dying,
were precious in his sight.

He shall come down like showers
upon the fruitful earth;
that love, joy, hope, like flowers,
spring in his path to birth;
before him, on the mountains,
shall peace the herald go;
and righteousness, in fountains,
from hill to valley flow.

Kings shall bow down before him,
and gold and incense bring;
all nations shall adore him,
his praise all people sing;
to him shall prayer unceasing
and daily vows ascend,
his kingdom still increasing,
a kingdom without end.

O'er every foe victorious,
he on his throne shall rest;
from age to age more glorious,
all-blessing and all-blest.
The tide of time shall never
his covenant remove;
his name shall stand for ever,
his changeless name of Love.

History

James Montgomery wrote this hymn as a paraphrase of Psalm 72, the psalm of the righteous king whose reign brings justice to the poor. According to the notes on Hymnary.org, it was written in eight stanzas for a Christmas Ode sung at a Moravian settlement, probably Fulneck, at Christmas 1821, and was published the following year in the Evangelical Magazine as an 'Imitation of the 72d psalm'. Read as a hymn of Christ, 'great David's greater Son', it moves from his coming 'to break oppression, to set the captive free' to the image of him coming down 'like showers upon the fruitful earth', and ends with 'his changeless name of Love'. The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, quoted on Hymnary.org, calls it Montgomery's best psalm rendering; Hymnary.org records it in more than 800 hymnals, set to many tunes.

Montgomery was born at Irvine in Ayrshire in 1771, the son of Moravian parents who died on mission in the West Indies while he was at school at the Moravian settlement of Fulneck in Yorkshire. He edited the Sheffield Iris from 1796 to 1827; he was twice imprisoned, and protested against slavery, the treatment of boy chimney sweeps and lotteries. He wrote some four hundred hymns, among them 'Angels from the realms of glory', and died in his sleep at Sheffield on 30 April 1854.

Performance

This recording by St Martin's Voices runs to just under four minutes, with five verses.

Sources: hymnary.org · St Martin's Voices recording and Words book