"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" is the supreme achievement of German Baroque hymnody - a sweeping paraphrase of the creation and providence psalms that has been described as the finest praise hymn ever written. Composed by Joachim Neander in 1680 and given its standard English form by Catherine Winkworth in 1863, it stands at the convergence of the Psalter, the Lutheran chorale tradition, and the growing evangelical movement that Winkworth's translations helped to shape.
The Composition
Joachim Neander (1650-1680) wrote the hymn 'Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren' in 1680, the year of his death at age twenty-nine from tuberculosis. Despite his short life, Neander left a legacy of sixty hymns that represent the finest flowering of the German Reformed pietist tradition. The hymn was published in his collection A und Ω, Glaub- und Liebesübung (1680). Its tune, 'Lobe den Herren,' appeared in the Stralsund Gesangbuch of 1665 and was borrowed by Neander for his text - a common practice in the German hymn tradition, where texts and tunes circulated independently.
Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) translated the hymn for her landmark collection Lyra Germanica (1855) and revised the translation for Chorale Book for England (1863). Winkworth's contribution to English hymnody was extraordinary: her translations of German Lutheran and Reformed hymns - including 'Now Thank We All Our God' (Rinkart), 'Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,' and this hymn - gave English-speaking Protestants access to three centuries of German devotional song. She was also a prominent advocate for women's education and is commemorated in the Church of England calendar.
Biblical Text
Psalm 103 is the primary source. Its opening verses - 'Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits' - provide the hymn's governing call: the whole being, body and soul and all one's faculties, is summoned to praise. The psalm then moves through the divine character: forgiveness (v. 3), healing (v. 3), redemption (v. 4), tender mercies (v. 4), satisfaction (v. 5), justice (v. 6), and the framing of human transience against divine eternity (v. 14-17). Neander paraphrases this catalogue of divine mercies without following the psalm verse by verse: he captures the doxological spirit rather than the sequential argument.
Psalm 150 - the psalter's final doxology - provides the concluding summons: 'Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp... Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD.' Neander's final stanza extends this summons: 'All ye who hear, now to his altar draw near; praise him with grateful adoration.' The vision of universal, breath-inclusive praise from Psalm 150 becomes the eschatological goal toward which the entire hymn moves.
The Creator
Joachim Neander (1650-1680) was born in Bremen, the son and grandson of pastors. He studied theology but was initially more interested in pleasure than piety. A sermon by the Reformed pastor Theodore Under-Eyck converted him decisively at age twenty, and he became a deeply committed pietist. He taught at the Latin school in Düsseldorf and worshiped in a gorge near Düsseldorf that he named 'Neanderthal' (Neander's valley) - the same valley that in 1856 would yield the skull of the prehistoric human species named Homo neanderthalensis. His early death from tuberculosis robbed German hymnody of one of its greatest voices, though his sixty hymns have ensured his permanent influence.
Musical Setting
The tune 'Lobe den Herren' (used in the Stralsund Gesangbuch of 1665) is in a broad 3/4 time in the major key - stately, spacious, and expansive. Its wide melodic range and long phrases give it a quality of grandeur appropriate to the text's vision of universal praise. The tune is not easily whistled or hummed in passing; it requires full engagement from singers, which is part of its power as a congregational hymn: it demands the whole breath, as the text demands the whole soul.
Theological Content
The hymn is an act of comprehensive doxology - praise that covers the whole of human existence. The four stanzas move from the opening call to praise (stanza one: 'Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!') through the providence that sustains and protects (stanza two: 'Praise to the Lord, who o'er all things so wondrously reigneth') to the experience of divine blessing (stanza three: 'Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee') to the universal invitation (stanza four: 'Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore him!'). The theological movement is from God's objective greatness to God's subjective experience in the believer's life, arriving at the summons to total and universal praise.
Legacy
The hymn is sung on every continent and in virtually every Protestant tradition. It is a standard of Reformation Sunday observances, festival worship, and graduation ceremonies. In Germany it has the status of a national Protestant hymn, regularly sung at state occasions. In England and North America, Winkworth's translation has made it one of the best-loved of all German imports. Its combination of Psalm-based theology, musical grandeur, and doxological comprehensiveness gives it a power that has not diminished in three and a half centuries of use.