The people who still walk in the dark

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Jan Mostaert : The Prophet Isaiah ( Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen )

The people who are still walking in the dark is an Advent song of the 20th century that is contained in the Evangelical Hymnal (EG 20).

It refers to the Bible text Isa 9,1–6  LUT . The song originally comes from the Netherlands. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt wrote the text ( Het volk dat wandelt in het duister ), Frits Mehrtens the melody. The German translation was done by Jürgen Henkys .

song lyrics

Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt was a historian with a focus on the history and culture of North America. In 1956 he published a book entitled Het volk dat in duisternis wandelt ("The people who walk in darkness") on the history of the African American people . The prophetic words from the Book of Isaiah, which he chose as a title, suggest a modern history of oppression. The hymn that Schulte Nordholt composed in 1959 also includes such updates and supplements the Isaiah text with motifs from the Gospel of John (verse 5: Way, Truth and Life) and the Book of Revelation.

melody

The setting of the nine stanzas by Frits Mehrtens follows the tradition of the Reformed psalm song . "The melody ... is shaped by the three stacked quarters, a formula that does not appear in any other hymn and that clearly shows the light coming from the dark." Originally, even and odd stanzas each had different melodies.

Reception in the Netherlands

Het volk dat wandelt in het duister was included in the Liedboek voor de Kerken in 1973 (No. 25), which was the result of interdenominational collaboration and which has become the standard hymn book for many Protestant churches in the Netherlands. The Synod of Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken 1974 included Het volk dat wandelt in het duister in the Schriftberijmingen collection as a particularly true-to-text version of the Bible, with the exception of the last stanza, which was criticized as it seemed to represent the doctrine of universal reconciliation ( En alle, all canteens seeds, / die zullen voor zijn aangezicht / staan ​​zingen in het grote licht. / En Hij kent allen bij hun namen. )

In 1983 the song was included in the Catholic hymn book of the Netherlands ( Gezangen voor Liturgie , No. 459).

German translation

The free German translation by Jürgen Henkys evoked memories of World War II, as a comparison of the third stanza shows:

Liedboek voor de Kerken, 1973 Jürgen Henkys: Get in the boat.
New Dutch hymns.
Berlin 1981 		Evangelical hymn book, 1996

Hij komt met vrede; en geen rampen
geen oorlog en geen bitterheid
zal er meer zijn, geen child dat screams,
geen laarzen who stamp in 't duister.

His peace comes. No more sirens, no more
war, treason and bitter times!
No child who screams in
shock at night because boots are booming on the pavement.

He comes with peace. No more lawsuits, no more
war, treason and bitter times!
No child who screams in shock at night
because boots hit the pavement.

The version of the Evangelical Hymnal "dispenses with the specific noise of modern war" and comes closer to the Dutch model.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Fischer : Workbook for the Evangelical Hymnal . tape 1 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-50309-1 , pp. 19 .
  2. ↑ Het volk dat walks in het duister. In: kerkliedwiki.nl. Retrieved November 25, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Liederen (numbers 401 to 481). In: Gezangen voor Liturgie. Retrieved November 25, 2018 (Dutch).
  4. ↑ Wim Kloppenburg: 20 - The people who still walk in the dark . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 1 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-50319-9 , pp. 62–64 ( limited preview in Google Book search).