LSB #722 "Lord, Take My Hand and Lead Me"

Biblical citations in the hymnal:  John 10:27-28; Psalm 23; Psalm 5:8; 121:4-7

John 10:27-28:  "27 'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.'"

Psalm 23:  "1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters.  3 He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

"4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

"5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."

Psalm 5:8:  "Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me."

Psalm 121:4-7:  "4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

"5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.  6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

"7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.  8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore."

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The first three cited passages (John 10:27-28, Psalm 23, and Psalm 5:8) appear throughout the first verse and at the ends of the second and third ("For when Your hand is guiding, / In peace I go" and "So take my hand and lead me / Unto the end").

The passage from Psalm 121 appears in the lines "Direct, protect, and feed me / From day to day," specifically the "protect[ing]."  The "feed[ing]" seems to come from Psalm 23:5.

The line "Without Your grace and favor / I go astray" in the first verse may come from the first part of Psalm 119:176 ("I have gone astray like a lost sheep...") or part of Isaiah 53:6 ("All we like sheep have gone astray..."), both of which use the same sheep imagery as Psalm 23 and John 10.

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The line "Close by Your side abiding" in the second verse exhibits internal rhyme, and this provides a sense of the constancy of "abiding."

"Lord, Take My Hand and Lead Me"

A couple weeks ago, one of the hymns in the mid-week Lenten service was "Lord, Take My Hand and Lead Me."  I noticed an interesting feature at the beginning of the third verse.  The first line is "Lord, when the shadows lengthen," sung to this phrase from the tune "So nimm denn meine Hände" (it's plural in the German:  "So Take Then My Hands"):

The notes are all quarter notes until "lengthen," which is sung to a half note and a quarter note.  The increased note value of that half note gives a sense of that "lengthen[ing]."  It's also illustrated simply in the syllable count of the words:  in this line, "shadows" and "lengthen" are the only words with more than one syllable.

Writing about those features also gives me the opportunity to note something I realized about two years ago but didn't consider significant enough to write about on its own.  Later in the third verse are the lines "I know that You will strengthen / My steps toward home. / Then nothing can impede me."  Impede is related to the Latin word for foot (pes), so there's something of a link back to the "steps" in the previous line.  (Note, however, that since the text is translated, this may be specific to the English.)