LSB #713 "From God Can Nothing Move Me"

Biblical citations in the hymnal:  Romans 8:38-39, Joshua 24:16, Psalm 73:23

Romans 8:38-39:  "38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Joshua 24:16:  "Then the people answered, 'Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods'"

Psalm 73:23:  "Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand."

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The three cited passages all seem to inform the hymn more generally than specifically.  The greatest similarity between these citations and the hymn text is in the title line ("From God can nothing move me").

The lines "In His good time He changes / All sorrow into joy" in the third verse bear some resemblance to Psalm 30:11:  "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness."

The line "He ev'ry gift imparts" in the fourth verse may refer to James 1:17:  "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

This is a minor point, but there's a temporal merism ("in evening and in morning") in the second half of the first verse:  "He stretches out His hand / In evening and in morning, / My life with grace adorning / Wherever I may stand."  The imagery here may come from Psalm 145:16:  "You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing."

"From God Can Nothing Move Me"

Last year, I noticed two small features in "From God Can Nothing Move Me," sung to the tune "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen."

The first line is, of course, "From God can nothing move me," sung to this phrase:

"From God" is sung to two G notes.  The tune is in G minor, so this is the tonic note.  In the same way that God is the anchor, the very phrase "from God" is sung to the foundational pitch of the hymn's tune.

The first verse ends with the lines "My life with grace adorning / Wherever I may stand," sung to these phrases:

There are two accidentals in the phrase to which "Wherever I may stand" is sung (E natural and F#), and the syllables of "wherever" are each sung to a different pitch (E D G).  Both of these features indicate the breadth of that "wherever."