Unless stated otherwise, my source for hymn texts and tunes is The Lutheran Service Book.

Friday, August 30, 2019

"Jesus Shall Reign"

I was flipping through my hymnal recently and noticed something in "Jesus Shall Reign" that I probably should have mentioned more specifically when I wrote about the hymn a couple years ago.

I noted the musical span (particularly in the second measure) of this phrase from "Duke Street":


and that it connects with the breadth in the text there in the first verse:  "His kingdom stretch from shore to shore."  I didn't mention, however, that "stretch" is sung with a melisma (D F#), which also gives a sense of the expanse.

While reading over the text in order to write this post, I also realized that "from shore to shore" is a merism.