The book of Judges tells us about a time in history when Israel was just settling into their new home, the “Promised Land.” The people living in the surrounding land resisted the Israelites moving in. Shalom is a derivative of shâlêm (which means “be complete” or “sound”) Shalom is translated as “peace” or “absence from strife.” Jehovah-Shalom is the name of an altar built by Gideon in Ophrah. This unusually interesting account of this widely used hymn will be of permanent interest to lovers of this lyric, and will set at rest all speculations as to its origin and design.The name Jehovah is translated as “The Existing One” or “Lord.” The chief meaning of Jehovah comes from the Hebrew word Havah meaning “to be” or “to exist.” It also suggests “to become” or specifically “to become known” – this denotes a God who reveals Himself unceasingly. The most touching occasion on which, personally, I ever heard it sung was round the grave of my eldest brother, Bishop Edward Bickersteth (of South Tokyo), at Chiselden, in 1897, when my father was chief mourner." “The hymn has been translated into many tongues and for years I doubt if my father went many days without receiving from different people assurances of the comfort which the words had been allowed to bring to them. Some years later than 1875 an invalid wrote to my father pointing out that he had not met the case of sickness, which induced him to write two lines which appropriately can be added, but which he himself never printed in his own hymn-book, so that I do not know how far he would wish them to be considered part of the hymn. "It is not always noticed that the first line in each verse of "Peace, perfect peace," is in the form of a question referring to someone or other of the disturbing experiences of life, and the second line in each verse endeavours to give the answer. "I may add that it was his invariable custom to expect each one of us on Sundays at tea to repeat a hymn, and he did the same, unless, as frequently happened, he wrote us a special hymn himself, in which way many of his hymns were first given to the Church. I was with my father at the time, being home from school for the summer holidays, and I well recollect his coming in to tea, a meal which we always had with him on Sunday afternoons, and saying, "Children, I have written you & hymn," and reading us "Peace, perfect peace," in which, from the moment that he wrote it, he never made any alteration. Taking up a sheet of paper he then and there wrote down the hymn just exactly as it stands, and read it to this dying Christian. He always found it easiest to express in verse whatever subject was upper¬most in his mind, so that when on the afternoon of that Sunday he visited an aged and dying relative, Archdeacon Hill of Liverpool, and found him somewhat troubled in mind, it was natural to him to express in verse the spiritual comfort which he desired to convey. "On a Sunday morning in August, the Vicar of Harrogate, Canon Gibbon, happened to preach from the text, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee," and alluded to the fact that in the Hebrew the words are "Peace, peace," twice repeated, and happily translated in the 1611 translation by the phrase, “Perfect peace." This sermon set my father's mind working on the subject. “This hymn was written by Bishop Edward Henry Bickersteth, D.D., while he was spending his summer holiday in Harrogate in the year 1875, in a house facing the Stray, lent to him by his friend Mr. Bickersteth, D.D., Vicar of Leeds, has kindly furnished us with the following history of this hymn:. Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin, p.
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