Old 100th - Lyrics

Lyrics

The original lyrics set to this tune in the Genevan Psalter are taken from Psalm 134. They have been translated thus:

You faithful servants of the Lord,

sing out his praise with one accord,

while serving him with all your might

and keeping vigil through the night.

Unto his house lift up your hand

and to the Lord your praises send.

May God who made the earth and sky

bestow his blessings from on high.

Old 100th is commonly used to sing the lyrics that begin "All People That on Earth Do Dwell," based on Psalm 100, which originated in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561) and is attributed to the Scottish clergyman William Kethe. Kethe was in exile at Geneva at this time, as the Scottish Reformation was only just beginning. This version was sung at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, with harmonization and arrangement by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The first verse is as follows:

All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;

Come ye before Him and rejoice.

A hymn commonly sung to Old 100th is "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow," using the text often referred to as the Doxology, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken, a clergyman in the Church of England. This hymn was originally the final verse of a longer hymn entitled "Awake, My Soul, and With the Sun," though it is most commonly sung by itself as a doxology. The traditional text is:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Modernized versions of that text are also widely used. The melody can be used for any hymn text in long meter, that is, with four lines of eight syllables each. The hymn From all that dwell below the skies, a paraphrasing of Psalm 117 by Isaac Watts with the Doxology as the final verse, is commonly sung to the tune. In the Sacred Harp and other shape note singing traditions, the tune is sung with the text "O Come, Loud Anthems Let Us Sing," a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 95 from Tate and Brady's A New Version of the Psalms of David.