Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. (Psalm 145:3)
The hymn How Great Thou Art traveled a long road before it ended up a favorite edition to English hymnals. The beloved song dates all the way back to 1885, when Swedish pastor Carl Gustav Boberg was caught in a thunderstorm. It was a thunderstorm that, according to legend, struck fear into the heart of Martin Luther and extracted from him a vow to become a monk. Pastor Boberg, on the other hand, was filled with awe at the grandeur of the storm, the rainbow, and the brilliant light and bird songs that followed the storm.
Boberg sensed the power of God in that storm much the way the writer of Psalm 29 did: The God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters…The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning. The storm's majesty inspired Boberg to write a nine-stanza poem along the same lines. Several years later Boberg was surprised and delighted to hear his poem being sung by a church congregation, to the tune of an old Swedish folk melody. Boberg's poem was soon thereafter translated into German by Manfred von Glehn, who entitled it Wie gross bist Du. In 1927, Glehn's German version was also translated into Russian. Throughout all of these translations, the original Swedish folk tune remained the same.
In 1933, English missionaries to the Ukraine, Reverend and Mrs. Stuart K. Hine, heard the song for the first time, fell in love with it and sang it often throughout their missionary journeys. As they traveled the Carpathian Mountains, the couple was inspired by the incredible beauty to translate the first three verses of the song into English. When WWII broke out in 1939, the Hines’ returned to England carrying How Great Thou Art to its new home. After the war, they wrote the fourth verse and arranged the original Swedish folk tune to be published in English hymnals.
In the 1950s, the song was copyrighted and widely published in America, becoming more and more popular. When George Beverly Shay and the Billy Graham gospel choir began to sing the song at virtually every crusade event, How Great Thou Art soon became one of the most recognized songs around the world. A poll conducted by the Christian Herald magazine in 1974 named How Great Thou Art the most popular hymn in America.
O Lord, my God! when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze:
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin:
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!