You spoke your word

Notes and commentary on hymn You spoke your word.

Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its size? Surely you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, and who laid its cornerstone, While the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb, When I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? When I set limits for it and fastened the bar of its door, And said: Thus far shall you come but no farther, and here shall your proud waves stop? Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place?

—Job 38:4–12 (NABRE)

Scientists have the huge privilege of seeing the creative work of God in action, in ways far deeper and more enriching than had been imagined by earlier generations.

This hymn aims to be deeply rooted in a three-fold revelation of God: inspired scripture, his gift of science, and (by his grace) our own Christ-filled lives.

The first two verses are rooted in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament), particularly in Genesis 1 and 2, and Job 38. The second two verses are based in the New Testament. We might also note that the "Logos" passage of John 1:1-14 (see v3) is itself a midrash on Gen. 1 and the "Wisdom" passage of Proverbs 8 (referenced briefly in v2 here).

Each verse begins "You", addressed to God, which is often repeated through the first half. Each ends in a line structured "…God…earth". The first half is a statement; the second half some sort of outworking from that.

The text is written specifically to the tune Londonderry Air, well-known to English-speaking congregations. In other hymns to this tune, some congregations can be unsure near the end of the last line about which syllable should be spread across which three notes. So this text removes that ambiguity by having two more syllables than usual.

Verse 1: Gen. 1: the first creation narrative in Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heavens…". Scripturally, Gen. 1 is about the voice of God (contrast Gen. 2 about his breath). He speaks things into being. Scientifically, the universe sprang into being at the "Big Bang", nearly 15 billion years ago.
1:2: "…backdrop to the universe": The "cosmic microwave background"; traces of the "Big Bang" still faintly detectable today. Scientists often describe this to lay audiences by the analogy of background sound: theologically this has a further analogy to "In the beginning…God said/spoke/voiced".
1:4: "ten thousand million years": The elapsed time between the Big Bang somewhat under 15 billion years ago and the planetary accretion of the earth somewhat under 5 billion years ago. From a theological perspective we can ponder that for the first two-thirds of the universe's existence, the earth did not exist.
1:5: "…from ancient stardust founded": The majority of chemical elements only exist because they required the complete life-cycle (birth, life and supernova collapse) of previous generations of stars, on a timescale of a few billion years. Quite literally, we are stardust. (Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?")
1:6: "stars newborn together sang with mirth": Job 38:7. The "newborn" (Job uses "morning") reflects that generational aspect of stellar evolution, and contrasts with the "ancient" in the previous line.
1:7: "aeons": In everyday speech, a very long time. In science, a shorthand reference for timescales where a billion years is a convenient means of measurement. In geology, with the variant spelling "eon", it also has a specific meaning, again of the order of a few billion years.
1:7: "coaxed formlessness to order": Biblical studies: God brings order to the primodial waters of chaos; see also note on 2:1. Science: the earth and other planets each coalesced from the solar nebula cloud of gas and dust around the early Sun.
1:8: "dawned": Resonates with Job 38:4's text "morning stars".

Verse 2: This verse bridges towards the place in the created order of God-aware humanity.
2:1–2: Biblical studies: Gen. 1 is both related to, and protest against, the Ancient Near East cosmology of chaoskampf: a polytheistic warring of the gods in chaos. Scripture was written against that background, repeatedly polemicisng against it, so this "seas of chaos" idea recurs across the Old Testament (and occasionally into the NT: Jesus calming the sea; the "no more sea" of Rev. 21:1). Here, we note its occurrence in Job 38:8–9 which relates back to the deep and waste of those waters in Gen. 1:2.
2:3–4: Summarises the remainder of Gen. 1; also Job 38:39–39:30. The "life came forth" reflects both the "bring forth" language of Gen. 1 and the scientific discoveries about the development and evolution of life.
2:4: This takes advantage of a potential double-meaning in English of the phrase-structure "from X to Y", which can describe not only simply an extent but also a time-ordered progression.
2:5: In contrast to the first chapter of Genesis in which God's action is noticeably of his speaking, the second chapter leads to humanity, represented as Adam and Eve, becoming God-aware through his breath and spirit (Hebrew "ruach").
2:5: "wisdom": While the word "wisdom" isn't itself in the Gen. 2 narrative, the term "knowledge of…" is. Further, "wisdom" is the theme of Proverbs 8. So this bridges towards the third verse, based on John 1, which itself builds from those passages.
2:6–8: Humanity is made "in the image of God" himself; his representatives here on earth; his stewards. (As an aside we also note that Jesus's "parable of the talents" picks up this "representative stewards" idea.)
2:7: "crown of all creation": Psalm 8:5. See also this hymn's 4:5–6.
2:8: "image of God": The phrase used in Gen. 1:26–27 about humanity. Also key in 3:4.
2:8: "entrusted stewards…your earth": Earlier English translations had used words such as "dominion". But this badly mis-represented a strong overall "story arc" in the OT about creation itself being treasured by God and that humanity is there to act responsibly towards it and with it.

Verse 3: This moves us into the New Testament and the incarnation of Jesus. The entire verse is primarily a paraphrasing of the first few verses of John's gospel and a credal passage from Philippians 2:5-11.
3:1: John 1:1 2: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."
3:2: John 1:4: "In him was life and that life was the light of humanity."
3:3–8: Phillipians 2:5–11 in paraphrase.
3:3: "dwelling": "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). See also 4:7.
3:4: "image of God". Imported from Col. 1:15: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation". This resonates strongly with the Genesis 1 creation of humanity "in the image of God" to steward the earth: a resonance worth pondering.
3:6: "Prince of Life": To contrast with "obedient unto death", and directly from Peter's speech reported in Acts 3:15: "You killed the Prince of Life…".

Verse 4: This moves us into our own lives in Christ himself and our response to him.
4:1: "in the dawning": A specific back-reference to 1:8 "light of God…dawned".
4:2: "when the darkness is our closest friend": The final verse of Psalm 88, perhaps the most hope-deprived Psalm, with its bleak ending. Yet there it is, at the heart of the Psalms, themselves at the heart of our Christian scriptures. For many of us, its presence there is reassuring.
4:3: "with mirth and woe entangling": The "woe" leads from the Psalm 88 quotation in the previous line; the "mirth" is from the Job portrayal of the morning stars singing with mirth, a back-reference to 1:6. And, to throw in another reference to modern science, the "entangling" has a conscious resonance with the mysterious science of "quantum entanglement".
4:4: "you walk beside": Drawn from the two disciples on the Emmaus Road. See also 4:7.
4:4: "you greet us at the end": Matt. 25:21–23.
4:5–6: "breath and voice": Verse 1 was about the voice of God; verse 2 about the breath of God. Here, in response, we bring together our own breath and voice.
4:5–6: "breath and voice…with the angels": Adapted from the Church of England's "Eucharistic Prayer G": "You give us breath and speech, that with angels and archangels and all the powers of heaven we may find a voice to sing your praise: Holy, holy, holy Lord…".
4:7: "risen Lord…dwelling": The two disciples on the Emmaus Road, who had not yet believed the rumours of the resurrection, invite this stranger "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over."
4:7: "dwelling": As in 3:3 the incarnate Jesus made his dwelling among us (John 1:14) so we ourselves invite the risen Christ to dwell in us individually and in the church.
4:8: "renew… through us creation": Our responsibility, in our "image of God" role, to care for the creation of Gen. 1:1.

Written for, and dedicated to, Professor Tom McLeish, in October 2022, following his diagnosis with serious illness. In deepest gratitude for all I have learned from him and his work.