All my living fountains will spring up in you

‘All my living fountains will spring up in you!’ Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig* (1783-1872), translated by Alan Gaunt* (1935-2023). This hymn, ‘Alle mine kilder skal vaere hos dig!’, has its roots in Psalm 87: ‘On the holy mountain stands the city God has founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O City of God.’ A standard commentary speaks of this particular psalm as expressing the highest point of the universalism of the psalter, for in it the psalmist declares that in a mysterious way Zion is not only the mother of all the tribes of Israel, but of all the nations of the world. Of all it shall be said that they...

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