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

Friday, June 27, 2025

"If God Himself Be for Me"

Last month, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 2 May, in which the hymn was "If God Himself Be for Me."  I noticed some phrases in the hymn text that seem to be borrowed from Biblical passages but which I didn't include in my post on the Biblical sources for the hymn.  Even if I recognized them at the time, I may have thought that the contexts in which they appear are too different to constitute them as actual sources, but I felt now that I should note them anyway.

Here's the sixth verse:
Who clings with resolution
To Him whom Satan hates
Must look for persecution;
For him the burden waits
Of mock'ry, shame, and losses
Heaped on his blameless head;
A thousand plagues and crosses
Will be his daily bread.
An expression similar to "heaped on his blameless head" occurs in Proverbs 25:21-22:  "21 If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, 22 for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you."  This is also quoted in Romans 12:20.

The phrase "daily bread" appears in Matthew 6:11 ("'Give us this day our daily bread'") and Luke 11:3 ("'Give us each day our daily bread'").