Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard

Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748) and the Compilers of Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1781). This hymn exists in several forms, by different hands. The original paraphrase of Isaiah 40: 27-31 appeared in Watts’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), Book I, ‘Collected from the Holy Scriptures’, with the title, ‘Strength from Heaven.’ It began Whence do our mournful thoughts arise? And where’s our courage fled? Has restless sin and raging hell Struck all our comforts dead? This was altered and extended in the draft (1745) and then in the revised Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1751, 1781) to make a text beginning ‘Why pour’st thou forth...