'The God of Abraham Praise' (c.1770) by Thomas Olivers is one of the most remarkable artifacts of 18th-century religious culture: a Christian hymn written by a Methodist preacher to a Jewish melody, based on the Jewish liturgical poem Yigdal, after the preacher heard a Jewish cantor sing it in a synagogue. It is a unique expression of the Jewish-Christian theological common ground around the God of the patriarchs - and as evidence that, even in an era of significant Jewish-Christian tension, encounter could produce something beautiful.
Thomas Olivers and the Great Synagogue
Thomas Olivers (1725-1799) was born in Wales and converted to Christianity after hearing George Whitefield preach. He became an itinerant Methodist preacher and a close associate of John Wesley. Around 1770, he attended a service at the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place, London - one of the largest and most distinguished Ashkenazi synagogues in Britain. He heard the cantor Meyer Lyon (known as 'Myer' in English sources) chant the Yigdal - the Jewish liturgical poem that summarizes Maimonides' Thirteen Articles of Faith - to a traditional melody. Olivers was so moved that he wrote the hymn as a Christian paraphrase and asked Lyon to write down the melody for him. The hymn was first published around 1770 with the title 'A Hymn to the God of Abraham. In Three Parts.'
The Yigdal
The Yigdal (Hebrew: 'may He be magnified') is a liturgical poem composed in the 14th century based on Maimonides' Thirteen Articles of Faith. It is sung at the conclusion of Friday evening synagogue services and on Shabbat morning. Its thirteen statements cover the existence of God, his unity, his incorporeality, his eternity, the authority of the Torah, the coming of the Messiah, and the resurrection of the dead. It is one of the most concise summaries of medieval Jewish theology.
Olivers took the structure of the Yigdal's affirmations and translated them into a Christian doxology, identifying the God of the patriarchs with the God and Father of Jesus Christ. The hymn celebrates what Jews and Christians hold in common - the God of Abraham, the giving of the Torah, the promises to the covenant people - while also adding specifically Christian content in the later stanzas.
Biblical Foundation
Genesis 12:1-3: The Abrahamic covenant - 'I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing... and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.' This is the foundational covenant from which both Jewish and Christian faith derive: the promise to Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to all nations.
Exodus 3:6 (KJV): 'I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' God's self-identification to Moses at the burning bush establishes the patriarchal covenant as the basis of the divine name and character. Jesus quotes this verse in Mark 12:26-27 as evidence of the resurrection: 'He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.'
Revelation 15:3: 'Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations.' The eschatological song of Moses and the Lamb - where Moses' song from Exodus 15 is sung alongside the song of the new covenant - provides the frame for the hymn's final vision of universal worship.
Structure of the Hymn
The hymn's multiple stanzas trace the trajectory of covenant history:
Opening stanzas: Praise of the God of Abraham - eternal, self-existent, holy. Middle stanzas: The patriarchal and Mosaic covenant - the God who called Abraham, gave the law through Moses, and sustained his people through history. Later stanzas: The specifically Christian additions - Christ as the fulfillment of the covenant, the coming kingdom, the final resurrection. Closing stanzas: The universal worship of the God of Abraham by all peoples.
The theological move is to identify the Christian God completely with the God of the Hebrew Bible, insisting on continuity of covenant rather than supersession: the God Christians worship is precisely the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Historical Significance
The hymn is a unique artifact of 18th-century Jewish-Christian encounter in London. Meyer Lyon's willingness to provide Olivers with the melody - and Olivers' evident respectful appreciation of Jewish worship - represents a more generous moment in Jewish-Christian relations than the legal and social context of the era might suggest. The Great Synagogue's musical tradition, centered on Lyon's celebrated voice, was actually known to and attended by educated Londoners of various backgrounds.
Legacy
The hymn is sung across Methodist, Anglican, Baptist, and evangelical traditions and appears in most major English hymnbooks. It remains one of the very few Christian hymns explicitly grounded in Jewish liturgical tradition and one of the finest examples of what respectful cross-religious encounter can produce. Its vision of the God of Abraham praised by all peoples anticipates the universal worship described in Revelation 15 - and in so doing, honors the covenant from which that universal hope derives.