February 16, 2019 (Saturday)
The words and music of the song, “The Love of God,” were written in 1917 by a California pastor, Frederick M. Lehman. The third verse was a partial translation of the poem, “Haddamut”, a 90-stanza poem written in 1050 in Aramaic by a Jewish man, Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, who was a cantor in Worms, Germany.* Lehman added the first two verses and chorus. This song has been translated into at least 18 languages.
My favorite singer of this song is George Beverly Shea, who never sang a song I didn’t like (ala Will Rogers). When I was a student at Baylor in the early 50’s, he came to the campus with the entire Billy Graham team for a chapel service. Memory fails me, but I’m guessing he sang, “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” which became, for me at least, his signature song. It was a poem he set to music at the age of 23. If any other song could also be called his signature song, it would be, “How Great Thou Art.” But somewhere in there among his favorites is “The Love of God.” It certainly is among those I love to hear him sing.
Bev Shea died in 2013 at the age of 104. He never stopped singing. Here is an impromptu video, made in the last year of his life:
The third verse, mentioned above, always speaks to my heart:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
I loved to sing “The Love of God,” first of all because of its amazing message and second, because it was easy to sing, and easy to find in the key of “C,” probably the easiest to play, and for me usually the easiest to sing. Wanda played it for me so many times she did not need the sheet music. Whenever I was asked to sing on the spot, she was ready to accompany me on the piano as we presented, “The Love of God.”
Here is his video made 30 years earlier in 1982:
Click here to listen to the Gaither group sing this wonderful hymn.