Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
This page includes a lyric video, history, sheet music, and other resources for the classic hymn “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah.” Enjoy!
Enjoy this You Tube video, performed by Hymn Charts, with lyrics for “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah”:
History of “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah”
Words by William Williams (1717-1791), Published in 1745
William Williams was born in 1717 as the son of a wealthy Welsh farmer. He intended to enter the medical profession but changed his course of study after hearing a sermon by Howell Harris.1 He was so moved by the preaching that he decided to pursue a full-time career in ministry.
At the age of 23, William was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. He served as a pastor for three years but was ultimately refused ordination as a priest because of his evangelical ideas.2 Thereafter, he connected with the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church and became “an exceedingly popular preacher throughout Wales.”3 He also wrote more than 800 hymns in Welsh and 100 in English. In his book Sweet Singers of Wales, hymnologist Howell Elvet Lewis wrote of William:
“. . . what Isaac Watts has been to England, that and more has William Williams . . . been to the little principality of Wales. His hymns have both stirred and soothed a nation for more than a hundred years; they have helped to fashion a nation’s character and to deepen a nation’s piety.”
“Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” was originally written in the Welsh language. William first published his work in a collection of Welsh hymns called Alleluia (1745). More than 25 years later, in 1771, the hymn was translated into English by his friend Peter Williams. A year later, William, the original author (or possibly his son John), translated the hymn and chose to retain the first verse of Peter’s translation.4 The English version was first printed in leaflet form in 1772.
Tune “Cwm Rhondda” by John Hughes (1873-1932), Published in 1907
John Hughes was born in Wales in 1873 as the son of a deacon and music leader in the Salem Baptist Church. At age 12, John went to work as a “door boy” at a local mine. He later became a clerk and then an official in the traffic department of the Great Western Railway – all the while remaining active in his father’s church.5 In fact, he succeeded his father as deacon and music leader, and he went on to compose numerous Sunday school songs and hymn tunes.
The tune “Cwm Rhondda” (pronounced “coom rawnthuh” in Welsh) was composed by John in 1907 for an annual Baptist Singing Festival in Capel Rhondda (an industrial area in Wales) – it was printed in leaflets for the occasion.6 Interestingly, it was printed next in the United States (in a collection called The Voice of Thanksgiving No. 4, 1928) and was not printed in Great Britain until 1933 (in the Fellowship Hymn-Book).7
Additional Resources for “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah”:
Sheet Music (PDF Compliments of Hymnary.org)
Guitar Chords (Links to Ultimate Guitar)
Visit Hymnary.org or Hymn Time.com for more on this hymn.
See our Hymn of the Week page for a list of the hymns that are included on this site.
This page was created by:
We welcome your ideas! If you have suggestions on how to improve this page, please contact us.
You may freely use this content if you cite the source and/or link back to this page.
Sources:
1 Reynolds, William Jensen. Hymns of Our Faith: A Handbook for the Baptist Hymnal. Broadman Press, 1964, p. 443.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid
4 Hustad, Donald P. Dictionary Handbook to Hymns for the Living Church. Hope Publishing Company, 1978, p. 151.
5 Reynolds, William Jensen. Hymns of Our Faith: A Handbook for the Baptist Hymnal. Broadman Press, 1964, p. 322.
6 Ibid, p. 57.
7 Hustad, Donald P. Dictionary Handbook to Hymns for the Living Church. Hope Publishing Company, 1978, p. 151.
Hymn of the Week
