ATDTDA non-14: Toplady Oust

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

374 - "Conceived in a choir loft during a rendition
of 'Rock of Ages'"

That's gotta mean something, as does the name Toplady Oust.

One of my favorite hymns, too, and a good anthem for miners.

What I didn't know, is besides the Christian hymn, it's
also a Chanukah song.

The Christian lyric:
Lyrics

    Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
    Let me hide myself in Thee;
    Let the water and the blood,
    From Thy riven side which flowed,
    Be of sin the double cure;
    Save from wrath and make me pure.


    Not the labour of my hands
    Can fulfil Thy law?s demands;
    Could my zeal no respite know,
    Could my tears for ever flow,
    All for sin could not atone;
    Thou must save, and Thou alone.


    Nothing in my hand I bring,
    Simply to the cross I cling;
    Naked, come to Thee for dress;
    Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
    Foul, I to the fountain fly;
    Wash me, Saviour, else I die.


    While I draw this fleeting breath,
    When my eyelids close in death, (*)
    When I soar to worlds unknown,
    See Thee on Thy judgement throne,
    Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
    Let me hide myself in Thee.

(*) This line was originally ?When my eye-strings break in death?.


The Rev Ian Paisley also has penned a fifth verse to this hymn

"Then above the world and sin, Thro' the veil, 
drawn right within, I shall see Him face to face, 
Sing the story, saved by grace, Rock of Ages, 
cleft for me, Let me ever be with Thee."

---------------------
the Chanukah song: (wikipedia)
Rock of Ages (in Hebrew, Ma'oz Tsur) is by far 
the best-known Chanukah hymn. It was written 
in the thirteenth century, by a poet known only 
by the name "Mordechai", an acrostic spelled out 
by the first letters of the five original stanzas.

The first stanza, based on Psalm 31, 
celebrates God's continued delivering power. 
In the popular if somewhat loose translation 
by M. Jastrow and G. Gottheil:

Rock of Ages let our song,
Praise thy saving power;
Thou amidst the raging foes,
Wast our shelt'ring tower.

Furious they assailed us,
But Thine arm availed us,
And Thy word broke their sword,
When our own strength failed us.
And Thy word broke their sword,
When our own strength failed us.

The next four stanzas celebrate, in chronological 
order, God's deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian, 
Babylonian, Persian, and Seleucid (the "Greeks" of 
the Chanukah celebration) empires.

A sixth stanza, added during bitter persecutions 
in the sixteenth century, called for God's deliverance 
from Roman (i.e. Christian) powers.