Bible Songs — Scriptures, Law, Sabbath

Jehovah's Rest

Holy day, Jehovah's Rest,

No. 1313
Tune JEHOVAH'S REST.
Words F. E. B.
Music F. E. Belden.
Key G major
Singing key F major
Time 6/8
5 stanzas

Words

Holy day, Jehovah's Rest,Of Creation's week the best;Last of all the chosen sev'n,Blessed of God, to man 'twas giv'n.

Chorus.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome;Welcome, welcome, ever welcome, welcome, welcome, ever welcome;Glad we hail its presence blest,'T is the great Jehovah's Rest.

First his six days' work was done,Then the Sabbath hour begun;Thus he blessed the seventh day,Thus in resting we obey.

Thousands have his plan reversed,Resting now upon the first;Search the Book and you shall knowThere's no scripture tells them so.

All who speak the truth must sayIt was man who changed the day:In God's word no change appearsThrough the whole six thousand years!

Thus I searched; and when I sawOnly one great Sabbath law,Then I hastened to obey,—Plainly, 'twas the only way.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1313» (large, left), title «JEHOVAH'S REST.» centred (condensed capitals with larger initials); under it the epigraph in two centred lines, «"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which / God created and made."—Gen. 2 : 3.» (the print's text: no comma after «seventh day», no colon after «sanctified it»); then «F. E. B.» at the left (words) and «F. E. BELDEN.» at the right (music), capitals and small capitals; no meter, no reference line and no running head. The five stanzas are interlinear, five lines between the staves of systems 1–2, numbered «1.»–«5.» in system 1; each stanza is four verse lines of seven syllables, two per system, given here as the verse lines of the poem. «CHORUS.» is printed over the treble staff at the start of system 3. The chorus has two lines of words in system 3: the upper line, sung by soprano and alto in dotted quarters («Wel - come, wel - come, wel - come, wel - come;»), and the lower line, sung at the same time by tenor and bass in quarter + eighth («Welcome, welcome, ev - er wel-come, wel-come, wel-come, ev - er wel-come;»); system 4 has one line for all voices. The chorus is given here once, after stanza 1: first the line of soprano and alto, then the line of tenor and bass, then the two lines sung by all. Syllable hyphens are joined («Je-ho-vah's», «Cre-a-tion's», «re-versed», «Rest-ing», «up-on», «be-gun», «Sab-bath», «chos-en», «sev-enth», «ap-pears», «script-ure», «has-tened», «o-bey», «Plain-ly», «thou-sand», «on-ly», «ev-er», «wel-come», «pres-ence»). The print sets a thin space before «;», «:» and «!» («best ;», «gun ;», «first ;», «day :», «searched ;», «years !», «come ;»); it is closed up here; quotation marks and apostrophes are written straight. «'T is» is printed with a space after «'T» and kept so; «'twas» is printed closed up. Under the music: «Copyrighted 1886 by F. E. Belden.» (centred) and the page number «523». Spelling, punctuation and capitals are the print's («Rest» capitalised, «Book», «Sabbath», «Blessed of God», «six days' work», «sev'n», «giv'n»).