Give peace, Lord, give peace
Give peace, O Lord, grant us peace is one of the Mennonite hymn writer January Nooter authored hymn . The prayer song with its plea for peace can be found in many Christian hymn books today .
The song was published in 1963 under the Dutch name Geef vreede, Heer, geef vrede . The title is taken from Ernst Moritz Arndt's peace poem, written in 1837 , the three stanzas of which each begin with Give Peace, Lord, Give Peace . Nooter, however, concretized the request for peace and wrote a new, more theologically based text version. The song, conceived as a prayer song, is clearly part of the Mennonite tradition of Christian pacifism . Unlike the poem by Ernst Moritz Arndt, Nooter's Friedenslied comprises four stanzas.
In 1980 the song was translated into German by Jürgen Henkys and was particularly popular in the East German peace movement . The peace movement was at that time in a sharp controversy with the rulers about the slogan swords to plowshares . Nevertheless, with the confrontational formulation of the first stanza Law is decided by power , the song was able to pass the censorship . The song is by a melody of Bartholomew Gesius sung (1603), to which the well-known song Commit your ways you by Paul Gerhardt is sung. The song can be found in the Protestant hymn book under number 430 and in the free church hymn book Fieren & Loben under number 72.
literature
- Wolfgang Herbst: Who is who in the hymn book , Göttingen 2001.
- Jürgen Henkys: Singing and Sung Faith. Hymnological contributions in a new series , Göttingen 1999.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Singing Ecumenism. Association of Protestant Church Musicians in Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia, accessed on May 4, 2010 .