The hymn, Be Thou My Vision, is from 6th century Ireland, but translated from Gaelic into English in the late 1800's. You can imagine, then, that it has old English. And it does. The second line is, "Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art." Right. What did he say?
I have to analyze that to figure it out. Let's see ... "naught" ... that's an archaic English word for "nothing." The "Let" is implied, so we have "Let nothing be all else to me." Stop. "Be all else to me"? That would be "everything." Or, more precisely, "everything but You." "Let nothing be everything to me ..." Okay, so far, so good. That word, "save," is old English for "except" (as opposed to "save"). "Let nothing be everything to me except ..." So what does the hymn pray will be everything to me? "That Thou art." If the intent was that nothing would mean as much to me as You do, then "what" seems like it would have been the right word. "Save what Thou art." But this word is "that." It seems to be saying, "Let nothing be as important to me as the fact that You are." Not "what You are," but "that You are." Interesting.
Maybe not. Maybe that "that" is an old English expression and the prayer is that nothing would be more important to me than He is. Nothing. And that's quite a prayer. Instead of me looking anywhere else, Father, You be my vision. You be where I look. You be my "best thought." You be my light. You be my "true Word." You be my treasure, my inheritance. You be first in my heart. "Whatever befall, still be Thou my vision, O Ruler of all." A great prayer for every believer.
7 comments:
That'll preach. Again, a wonderful hymn full of so much richness.
And one that I would agree could do with an update. Love it, but the low information Christian won't understand it.
I agree that there is some archaic language there, and also wonder if it's possible to update the language without losing the richness.
"Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art." Huh?? "Let nothing be as important to me as the fact that You are." Oh! (Thanks for translating that for us! :) My version: “Knowing God is all that truly matters to me.”
I’m guessing you won’t be looking at this particular hymn for us, or perhaps it warranted a prerequisite!?
I sure would like to see that “archaic language” updated, so that the “richness” we know is there could be seen by more people--i.e. those of us who would badly need a “translation” like Stan offered us today (similar to how the New King James Version of the Bible--updating the "thee's" and "thou's", etc.--was quite the “Godsend”). I remember when my kids were young and had invited unsaved friends to our church services; I noticed the young people struggling to make any sense from some of the hymns that we were all singing. Seemed like a real missed opportunity to get some good thoughts about God and eternal things into their minds.
I'm not one who is opposed to updating language ... as long as it is updating language as opposed to mitigating it. I saw Amazing Grace "updated" so that "Such a worm as I" became "Someone such as I." Not the same thing. But if a hymn (or Scripture) can have the current symbology (words) that convey the original thought, I'm all for it.
I agree--preserve the original meaning and imagery, if possible, but make the language understandable (1 Cor. 14:9). (Some writings would be too adversely modified by doing this, of course.) The alteration to “Amazing Grace” you mention was clearly a change in interpretation (much like the excessive liberty taken to produce The Message).
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