Rejoice The Lord Is King: A Song History

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Charles Wesley wrote "Rejoice, the Lord Is King" in six stanzas with Easter and the Ascension in mind.[1] Sources differ on where it first appeared: Hymnary.org's notes point to John Wesley's Moral and Sacred Poems of 1744, while Discipleship Ministries dates its debut to Hymns for Our Lord's Resurrection, a pocket-sized set of sixteen hymns issued for Easter 1746.[1][2] Five of the stanzas close with a two-line refrain which, according to Discipleship Ministries, opens by drawing on the Sursum corda, a third-century eucharistic invitation, recast here for a single heart.[2] Modern hymnals usually print only four of the six stanzas, and most place the hymn in sections for Christ the King or for the Ascension and Reign.[2]

A white porcelain bust of John Wesley in clerical dress with neck bands.

Bust of John Wesley, Parian porcelain, 1830–70. John Wesley, whose 1780 hymnbook left out his brother Charles's hymn; the bust has no connection to the hymn.

John Wesley left it out of his 1780 Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists.[2] According to Discipleship Ministries, that omission left it overlooked in the United States until a Wesleyan Association collection took it up in 1849, and no British Wesleyan collection carried it until 1876.[2] The Psalter Hymnal pairs the text with DARWALL'S 148TH, a tune by John Darwall, vicar of Walsall in Staffordshire, first printed in 1770 in Aaron Williams's New Universal Psalmodist as a Psalm 148 setting with only melody and bass.[1] Another tune, GOPSAL, is ascribed to George Frideric Handel around 1752 and takes its name from Gopsal Hall, the home of Charles Jennens, who wrote the libretto for Messiah.[2]

Larry Conger includes it, in DAD tuning, in Hymns, Spirituals, And Sacred Songs, a collection of classic gospel tunes for mountain dulcimer published by Fingers Of Steel.[3]

Our book that contains the song "Rejoice The Lord Is King"

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "Rejoice, the Lord Is King" (Psalter Hymnal, 1987, no. 408).
  2. Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: 'Rejoice, the Lord Is King'".
  3. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns, Spirituals, And Sacred Songs".
  4. Image: Bust of John Wesley, Parian porcelain, 1830–70. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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