Scottish Psalter, 1650
Psalm 100. The Faithful God.
The Psalm was used as a processional hymn to be chanted by the people as they went up to the temple for worship.
Sclater, in The Public Worship of God, discussing opening hymns of adoration, says: “There is none better than that grand old Puritan anthem, the 100th Psalm, set to Louis Bourgeois’ noble tune,” and adds that “those who are in perplexity to find hymns which precisely fit into various parts of the service might do a great deal worse than take a look at the Scottish Metrical Psalms. They will find them peculiarly rich in the noblest and simplest form of opening adoration.”
In verse 4 the printer has omitted the question mark (?) after the word “why,” in the early editions of the Hymnary.
William Kethe, to whom this version is ascribed, was one of the exiles with John Knox in Geneva during the persecutions of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Little is known of him but his name has been immortalized by this justly renowned paraphrase of Psalm 100.
MUSIC. OLD HUNDREDTH is the most famous of all Psalm tunes. It was adapted from a secular source by L. Bourgeois for Psalm 134 in the Genevan Psalter of 1551. In later collections—the Genevan Fourscore and Seven Psalms of David, and John Day’s Whole Book of Psalms, both published in 1561—the tune was attached to Kethe’s version of Psalm 100 and has remained associated with this Psalm ever since. The tune is one of 46 known as “Proper” or “Church” tunes which are distinguished by the adjective “Old” prefixed to the number of the psalm to which they were attached. A later form of the melody, introduced about the middle of the 18th century, is widely used with the “Doxology” ([No. 618]).
For comments on Louis Bourgeois see [Hymn 34].
595. Thou shalt arise, and mercy yet
Psalm CII