{"id":3374,"date":"2013-10-16T16:13:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T20:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=3374"},"modified":"2023-07-25T19:07:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T23:07:06","slug":"the-race-that-long-in-darkness-pined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2013\/10\/the-race-that-long-in-darkness-pined\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Race That Long in Darkness Pined”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s way too early for Christmas, but….<\/p>\n

My favorite reading for the Christmas season is the King James translation of Isaiah 9.1-8. I love the rhythm of the language, and the beauty of the imagery. From a theological perspective, I’m not willing to say that Isaiah 9.1-8 predicts the coming of Jesus as the one and only Messiah (capital “M”) — I’m in the camp that says there have been and will continue to be messiahs (lower case “m”), of whom Jesus of Nazareth was one. Whatever my theological position, it’s a beautiful piece of prose.<\/p>\n

Recently, I stumbled across a metrical paraphrase of Isaiah 9.1-8, done by John Morison for the 1650 Scottish Psalter. It’s not as good a rendition as the King James translation — but because it’s a metrical paraphrase, you could sing it, and how cool is that? So I wrote a hymn tune for it. A polyphonic tune. In Dorian mode. Between the music and the words, this would never be used as a hymn in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. But I had fun writing it, and there are one or two hymn geeks out there who might actually enjoy seeing it, so here it is:<\/p>\n

\"TheRaceThatFingernail\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Click the image for a PDF. Complete words below.)<\/p>\n

1. The race that long in darkness pined,
\nhave seen a glorious light,
\nThe people dwell in day, who dwelt
\nin death’s surrounding night.<\/p>\n

2. To hail thy rise, thou better Sun!
\nthe gath’ring nations came,
\nJoyous, as when the reapers bear
\nthe harvest-treasures in.<\/p>\n

3. For thou our burden has removed
\nand quelled th’oppressor’s sway,
\nQuick as the slaughter’d squadrons fell
\nin Midian’s evil day.<\/p>\n

4. To us a child of hope is born,
\nto us a son is given;
\nHim shall the tribes of earth obey,
\nhim all the hosts of heaven.<\/p>\n

5. His name shall be the Prince of Peace
\nforevermore adored,
\nThe Wonderful, the Counsellor,
\nthe great and mighty Lord.<\/p>\n

6. His power increasing still shall spread,
\nhis reign no end shall know;
\nJustice shall guard his throne above
\nand peace abound below.<\/p>\n

(Verse 3 is dropped in some hymnals.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s way too early for Christmas, but…. My favorite reading for the Christmas season is the King James translation of Isaiah 9.1-8. I love the rhythm of the language, and the beauty of the imagery. From a theological perspective, I’m not willing to say that Isaiah 9.1-8 predicts the coming of Jesus as the one … Continue reading ““The Race That Long in Darkness Pined””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[144,1012,71],"class_list":["post-3374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musical-arts","tag-christmas","tag-isaiah","tag-king-james-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3379,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3374\/revisions\/3379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}