O bless the God of Israel

O bless the God of Israel. Michael Arnold Perry* (1942-1996). A text which has undergone many revisions and thus appears in various forms is this paraphrased Benedictus*, the song or prophecy of Zechariah (RSV) in Luke 1. Being set as a canticle following the New Testament reading at Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, it was on the agenda of new writing for the group preparing Psalm Praise from 1969 onwards. But Perry, then a curate at Bitterne, Southampton, had already sent his text with others to the initiating chairman Michael Baughen*, so it was among the first to be considered. When the book was published in 1973 it included four versions from, respectively, Timothy...