O God, our help in ages past

O God, our help in ages past. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748). This version of Psalm 90, verses 1-5 is from The Psalms of David (1719), with the title ‘Man frail, and God eternal’. It had nine stanzas. It began ‘Our God, our help in ages past’, an opening line that was altered by John Wesley* in his Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1738) to ‘O God…’. This emendation has been accepted by most British hymnbooks apart from those of Congregationalists and Baptists, and some early Presbyterian books (before 1907). Most books have omitted the original stanzas 4 and 8: Thy word commands our flesh to dust, ‘Return, ye sons of men’: All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth...

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