Now Thank We All Our God

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Jan 28, 2000

Martin Rinkart was a pastor in the little city of Eilenberg in Saxony during the Thirty Years' War. This walled city was the goal of refugees during that time. They came and ate all the food, and then there was starvation. With the starvation came pestilence, until practically the whole population of the city died. Martin Rinkart, the only pastor left in the city, had as many as fifty funerals in one day. One evening after having conducted funerals all day, he sank down exhausted, thinking that he could bear it no longer; but then it was he wrote the words of the famous hymn:

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mothers' arms
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

Yes, it is the will of God for us that we give thanks. If we were not thankful we would go insane with the perplexities and irregularities of life's experiences. If there was ever a time when we needed to be thankful it is in the hour of crisis; because if we are not thankful, we will be overwhelmed by despair.

By Arthur L. Bietz, Signs of the Times, November 28, 1950

More than one hymn writer has drawn inspiration, as well as, in some cases, the words themselves, from the Apocrypha. For example, the exalted hymn of thanksgiving, "Nun danket alle Gott," written by Pastor Martin Rinkart about 1636 when the devastating Thirty Years War was nearing its end, is dependent upon Luther's translation of Sirach 50:22-24. Two stanzas of the hymn, as translated by Catherine Winkworth, will show the amount of borrowing (here printed in italics):

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mother's arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.

(From "A Brief History of the Apocrypha")

Similar Lutheran trial in Salzburg: A future topic on Lutheranism--watch for it!

Other translations:

Asian tongue?

devotional

Translator--Catherine Winkworth

Composer--