HOW GREAT THOU ART

Carl Gustav Boberg was born August 16, 1859 and died in 1940 in Sweden. He was well known as a poet and an elected official in Sweden. He was best known for the poem called “O Store Gud” or “O great God”.

The poem translated into English is How Great Thou Art. Boberg, who lived in Monsteras, Sweden wrote the poem in 1885 and the music was a traditional Swedish tune. Later it was translated into German and then Russian where it became a hymn.

It was translated into English by Stuart K. Hine, an English missionary who added two additional verses of his own. How Great Thou Art was chosen as the favorite hymn in BBC’s Songs of Praise and Today’s Christian magazine in 2001 as the number two hymn in the United States behind Amazing Grace.

HOW GREAT THOU ART

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee:
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee:
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;

That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin:
When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!