Composition
"O Worship the King" (1833) was written by Sir Robert Grant (1779-1838), a member of Parliament and later Governor of Bombay, based on a paraphrase of Psalm 104 by William Kethe (1561). Grant's version, set to the tune "Hanover" (variously attributed to Handel or William Croft), is a sustained doxological expansion of Psalm 104's nature imagery, working through five stanzas to describe God's majesty through the created world.
Biblical Text
Psalm 104 is one of the great creation psalms of the Hebrew Bible, celebrating God as the one "who wraps himself in light as with a garment; who stretches out the heavens like a tent" (104:2), who rides on the clouds, who makes the winds his messengers, who waters the mountains from his upper chambers and provides food for all creatures. The psalm presents the natural order as a continuous act of divine provision: "These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things" (104:27-28).
Grant's paraphrase captures both the cosmological scope and the personal tenderness of the psalm: God is simultaneously the creator of the cosmos ("The space of the universe is your throne") and the sustaining parent of every creature. The final stanza's address - "O measureless Might, ineffable Love" - describes the two attributes that the psalm embodies: the power that created and sustains, and the love that provides and protects.
Creator
Robert Grant was a distinguished public servant - lawyer, politician, administrator - whose hymn writing was apparently a private devotional activity. The fact that one of the finest hymns of the 19th century was written by a man known primarily for his public career is itself theologically suggestive: the contemplation that produced "O Worship the King" was available to someone whose daily life was entirely absorbed in the secular world of law and politics.
Legacy
The hymn is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful and theologically rich in the English language. Its combination of cosmological grandeur (God as the ground of natural order) and intimate address (God as the sustainer of each individual creature) captures something essential in Psalm 104's vision of a God who is simultaneously infinite and particular. The tune "Hanover" matches the text perfectly - majestic but not pompous, formal but not cold. The hymn is regularly used for Trinity Sunday, harvest festivals, and any occasion requiring a comprehensive statement of the praise due to God as creator.