Time&Eternity

notes to chapter 1 239
known, / we to your guardian care commit, / and peaceful leave before your feet,” text by
Philip Doddridge (1702–51).
AHB 512,7 should also be understood in this sense: “I know not what the future hath /
of marvel or surprise, / assured alone that life and death / his mercy underlies,” text by
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92).
96. AHB 494,1 (Sv ps 275,1, text by John Henry Newman [1833], revised by Berndt
David Assarson [1922] and Torsten Fogelqvist [1937]).
97. “Guide our hearts, that we treat not lightly / Thy punishments, but endeavor on
earth / to remain devoted in light of your future. / Praise the Lord!” (EG 447,9).
98. The AHB contains several passages from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(eighteenth century: 52,3; 473,3; 483,3; nineteenth century: 124,5, 499,3; 512,7; 522,4). 499,3
in particular reflects the ambivalence of surrendering and grasping a future that is felt to be
ambivalent: “Though the cause of evil prosper, / yet the truth alone is strong; / though her
portion be the scaffold / and upon the throne be wrong— / yet that scaffold sways the future,
/ and, behind the dim unknown, / God still stands within the shadow / keeping
watch above his own”; text revised by James Russell Lowell (1819–91).
99. This is reflected by the fact that Zukunft (future) occurs more frequently in the 123
hymns that are contained in the Ps90 than in the 677 hymns of the EG, and just as often as
in the 624 hymns of the AHB.
100. Svps1937 5,3, text by Gustaf Ållon (1694): “Lord, be the strength of the faithful /
and offer help to your Anointed One. / Save your people and support your church, /
which is your inheritance and your property. / Let them here be content in you / and be elevated
for eternal time.”
101. Sv ps 8,3: “Lord, be the strength of the faithful / further justice in our land. / Save
your people and support your church, / take our future in your hand. / Give us peace here
in time, / embrace us in your peace at last.”
102. Anointed One probably refers to the king as the highest official responsible for administering
justice (cf. Ps. 28:8 and Ronnås, Våra gemensamma psalmer, 13), which may
well have inspired Britt G. Hallqvist’s version.
103. Frykman indeed wrote Min framtidsdag—which he himself describes as the best
of a large number of hymns that he wrote—during a time that, for him personally, was
fraught with conflicts (Ronnås, ibid., 219). Nevertheless, these individual troubles do not
endanger the collective future, but are rather relativized by the safety of heaven.
104. Sv ps 302,1: “My future day is bright and long, / it lasts beyond the constraints of
time / there I shall blissfully behold God and the Lamb / and there will be no more sorrow
and affliction,” text by Nils Frykman, revised. Frykman’s confidence is based on the everlasting
inheritance stored up in heaven, the attainment of which is prepared by the earthly
time of testing (302,2). Here, future is basically synonymous with heaven.
105. “I stand before you with empty hands, o Lord; .l.l. /my fate is death, have you no
other blessings? / Are you the God who promises me the future? / I want to believe, oh,
please come to me,” GL 621,1 (= EG 382,1, where the last line reads: “Ich möchte glauben,
komm du mir entgegen” (I want to believe, oh, come to me); text by Lothar Zenetti
(1974), based on the Dutch “Ik sta voor U” by Huub Oosterhuis (1969).
106. Sei unsre Zukunft (GL 764,40, Litany of God’s Presence; text by Huub Oosterhuis,
translated by Lothar Zenetti).
107. Für unsere Kinder sei du die Zukunft (GL 764,70, Litany of God’s Presence; text
by Huub Oosterhuis, translated by Lothar Zenetti).
108. “God’s Word is like light in the night; / it has brought hope and [the] future,”EG
587(591), text by Hans-Hermann Bittger (1978). Cf. also the Easter hymn Sv ps 155,1: “.l.l.