All six of the original stanzas appear in The United Methodist Hymnal with only minor adaptations for the purposes of inclusive language.īetween the publication of the “old version” and “new version,” the English language had undergone considerable changes. This later paraphrase, while still close, indicates a loosening of the metrical paraphrase standards, allowing for a little more flexibility.
Tate’s paraphrase, though straying too far from Scripture for some, was closer to the wording found in the King James Version, an important qualification of earlier metrical versions. While humble shepherds watch’d their flocks The 1781 edition of this collection reflects the influence of Tate’s paraphrase but made some changes:
This metrical paraphrase was included in the influential Scottish Translations and Paraphrases (1745) almost 50 years later. Tate (1700) indicates a slight loosening of the stranglehold of metrical psalmody by also including, in addition to this Christmas hymn, hymns for Easter and for Holy Communion. The Supplement to the New Version of Psalms by Dr. A worship leader would "line out" each line of the hymn that is, the leader would sing each line in advance so that the congregation could hear the melody and repeat it. The practice was based on those churches following the lead of John Calvin (1509-1564), whose Genevan Psalter (1551) provided congregations with all they needed for singing in public worship.įurthermore, the practice was to sing the psalms unaccompanied in unison. “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks” is unusual for its day in that it follows this practice, but rather than being based on a psalm, it is a metrical paraphrase of Luke’s account of the nativity. In those days, Tate would have been known, among other things, as the writer of metrical psalms - hymns that paraphrased a psalm directly from Scripture and placed it in a poetic form with rhyme and a specific meter - with the goal of neither adding nor deleting any content from the text of the psalm. Psalm singing was the usual practice during the era of Nahum Tate (c. In this day, singing a congregational song based on anything but the psalms was very unusual. King William III approved this “new version” for worship. The Supplement of 1700, a supplement to the “new version” in which our hymn appears, was bound with the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer, giving it an even greater influence for years to come. 1549) and John Hopkins (1520/1521-1570) titled The Whole Booke of Psalms that had been published in 1562, over 140 years earlier. This collection was the "new version" because it attempted to supplant the "old version" by Thomas Sternhold (d.
With Nicholas Brady (1659-1726), a canon at Cork Cathedral in Ireland, Tate published A New Version of the Psalms of David in 1696. In some editions, the hymn is entitled, “Song of the Angels at the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour.” "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks," Nahum Tate's metrical version of Luke 2:8-14, offers us a way to sing the Christmas story virtually direct from Scripture. We sing many Christmas hymns and carols that offer a poet's personal or theological reflections on the season, but relatively few attempt to sing the biblical witness of the nativity verbatim. Any comparisons with changes in congregational song practice today are invited. In many ways, the story of this hymn from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century is also about the transition between old ways of congregational singing giving way to new trends. While shepherds watched their flocks by night,Ĭongregations sometimes have difficulty giving up a familiar older hymnal when a new one arrives on the scene.
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