430. I am Jesus’ little lamb
Henriette Luise von Hayn, 1724-82
A song of the Good Shepherd’s care of His lambs, based on Isa. 40:11: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.”
Henriette Luise von Hayn, born in Idstein, Nassau, early in life gave her heart to Christ and often rose at night to spend hours on her knees in prayer. Influenced by the writings of Zinzendorf, she became interested in joining the “Brotherhood,” against the wishes of her parents. One morning, after reading Matthew 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” she decided to leave home and did so, mailing a letter in the neighboring village to her parents explaining her intention to go to Herrnhag to join the Moravian colony at that place. However, she was detained at Frankfurt and returned to her home. Her parents now granted her wish to join the Moravians and the rest of her life was spent as a useful and influential member of the Brotherhood, first at Herrnhag and later at Herrnhut, where she received spiritual instruction from Zinzendorf himself. On August 8, 1776, she wrote “Weil ich Jesu Schäflein bin,” a poem of seven stanzas, in honor of Sister Christine Petersen’s thirty-sixth birthday. Our hymn is a selection of three stanzas from this poem.
The German version of the poem is as follows:
Weil ich Jesu Schäflein bin
Freu ich mich nur immerhin
Ueber meinen guten Hirten
Der mich wohl weiss zu bewirten,
Der mich liebet, der mich kennt
Und bei meinem Namen nennt.
Unter seinem sanften Stab
Geh’ ich aus und ein, und hab’
Unaussprechlich süsse Weide
Dass ich keinen Mangel leide;
Und so oft ich durstig bin,
Führt Er mich zum Brunnquell hin.
Sollt’ ich denn nicht fröhlich sein,
Ich beglücktes Schäfelein?
Denn nach diesen schönen Tagen
Werd’ ich endlich heimgetragen
In des Hirten Arm und Schoss:
Amen, ja mein Glück ist gross!
No information concerning the translator, William F. Stevenson, has been traced.
MUSIC. WEIL ICH JESU SCHÄFLEIN BIN is a popular melody, from the Gesangbuch mit Noten where it appears anonymously. It also appears with the same words and translation in the United Lutheran Common Service Book, 1918, where the tune is credited to Dölker’s Geistliche Lieder, 1876.