Now Thank We All Our God Meaning, History, and Theology
"Now thank we all our God"
- Written
- 1630
- Category
- Hymn
- Tune
- Standard Tune
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- Published
- Rights
- Public domain
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Story
Now Thank We All Our God is Martin Rinkart's early-seventeenth-century German thanksgiving hymn, translated by Catherine Winkworth in 1858 and sung to Johann Crüger's NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT. Originally rooted in a table prayer and Sirach 50:22-24, it joins gratitude, prayer for divine guidance, and Trinitarian praise.
Overview
Now Thank We All Our God is a hymn of thanksgiving that joins remembrance, petition, and doxology. Its opening movement looks back on God's generosity; its central movement asks for continuing presence, peace, and guidance; and its conclusion turns gratitude into Trinitarian praise. The hymn therefore treats thanksgiving not as a response only to pleasant circumstances but as a disciplined way of remembering who God is and how divine mercy sustains life.
The text is especially valuable pastorally because gratitude and need are held together. Worshipers may thank God for past gifts while still asking for protection, wisdom, and peace in an uncertain future. That structure makes the hymn suitable for harvest thanksgiving, civic or national services, anniversaries, weddings, family worship, and ordinary congregational praise.
Its biblical foundation reaches beyond the Psalms to Sirach 50:22-24, a passage included in the Lutheran Bible known to Rinkart. The hymn's enduring strength lies in transforming that scriptural blessing into communal Christian worship: thanksgiving becomes memory, trust, prayer, and praise of the Triune God.
Historical Background
Martin Rinkart's German hymn belongs to his devotional collection Jesu Hertz-Büchlein. The collection was completed around 1630 and first printed at Leipzig in 1636, so the hymn is best dated to about 1630 while 1636 is its established first-print date. Hymnology Archive reproduces the 1636 printing, where the text appears without music in three eight-line stanzas. Rinkart later described the songs in the collection as having been completed several years before the 1637 publication of another of his works, which supports an early-1630s composition rather than a later wartime legend.
That chronology corrects one of the hymn's most repeated stories. Rinkart's extraordinary ministry during the plague at Eilenburg occurred in 1637, after the hymn had already been printed. He did indeed serve amid catastrophic suffering, and hymnological sources report thousands of burials during the epidemic, but the hymn should not be presented as having been written in response to that plague. Likewise, it was not composed for the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, although later tradition reports that it was sung in thanksgiving celebrations at the end of the Thirty Years' War.
The first two stanzas are closely based on Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, 50:22-24, especially as mediated through the German biblical tradition familiar to Rinkart. In Rinkart's devotional collection these stanzas functioned as a short table prayer, giving the hymn a domestic origin very different from the grand public occasions with which it later became associated. The final stanza is a Trinitarian doxology modeled on the traditional Gloria Patri, expanding the family prayer into a complete congregational act of praise.
Johann Crüger supplied the melody now known as NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT for the hymn in the 1647 edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica. The text and tune have remained closely associated ever since. The melody later entered the works of major composers: Johann Sebastian Bach used it in several sacred compositions, and Felix Mendelssohn incorporated it into his Lobgesang of 1840. Many English-language hymnals use a harmonization derived from Mendelssohn, but that makes him a later harmonizer or adapter of the setting, not a second composer of Crüger's tune.
Catherine Winkworth created the English translation now most widely used in 1858 for the second series of Lyra Germanica. She printed it again in The Chorale Book for England in 1863, where historic German texts and tunes were deliberately brought into English congregational use. Her version preserved the distinctive 6.7.6.7.6.6.6.6 meter and became a major means by which Rinkart's hymn entered British and North American hymnals.
The hymn's long reception transformed a table prayer into a public song of thanksgiving without erasing its original simplicity. By the nineteenth century German hymnologists and Winkworth described it as a standard national expression of gratitude, and modern hymnals continue to place it in thanksgiving, harvest, providence, praise, Trinity, wedding, and other festive settings. Rinkart's text, Winkworth's translation, Crüger's tune, and the historic Mendelssohn-derived harmonizations are all public domain, though modern arrangements may carry separate copyrights.
Biblical Foundations
Sirach 50:22-24 is the hymn's most specific scriptural source. The passage blesses the God who has acted mercifully from the beginning of life, asks for gladness and peace, and looks toward continued divine deliverance. That sequence closely matches the hymn's movement from remembered blessing to prayer for God's continuing care.
Psalm 103:1-2 provides a canonical parallel by commanding the worshiper to praise God and not forget divine benefits. First Thessalonians 5:18 extends thanksgiving into every circumstance, while James 1:17 identifies every good and perfect gift as coming from God. Together these passages frame gratitude as theological memory rather than mere optimism.
Philippians 4:6-7 shows how thanksgiving and petition belong together: requests are offered with gratitude, and God's peace guards the believer. The hymn's final doxological movement also fits the church's Trinitarian confession, reflected explicitly in Matthew 28:19, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are named together.
Verse Explanation
The first stanza is retrospective: the community recalls God's generosity and responds with whole-life thanksgiving rather than private feeling alone.
The second stanza turns toward the future. Gratitude becomes petition as the worshipers ask for God's continuing presence, peace, grace, guidance, and deliverance through the uncertainties still ahead.
The third stanza expands the prayer into doxology. The hymn ends by directing praise to the Triune God and locating present thanksgiving within the church's continuing worship across time.
Theological Reflection
The hymn presents providence as a reason for gratitude without pretending that faithful people are exempt from difficulty. The worshiper remembers God's gifts, asks for continued nearness and guidance, and trusts divine mercy for what lies ahead. Thanksgiving therefore becomes an act of faith that interprets life through God's continuing goodness rather than through circumstances alone.
The text also links gratitude with peace. Biblical thanksgiving is not simply retrospective; it forms a posture for facing the future. Prayer for God's presence, grace, and deliverance acknowledges dependence, while gratitude resists both entitlement and despair. This combination is especially fitting for a hymn whose author ministered through prolonged social upheaval, even though the hymn itself predates the worst crisis of 1637.
The final doxology places all temporal blessings within Trinitarian worship. Christian gratitude ultimately terminates not in the gifts themselves but in the one God confessed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The hymn therefore moves from providence to praise: God's acts in daily life become reasons for the church to adore the eternal God.
Church Impact
The hymn became one of the most durable thanksgiving chorales in German Protestant worship. By the nineteenth century Catherine Winkworth described it as a standard German public song of gratitude, and its use on great civic and church occasions had expanded far beyond the modest table-prayer setting from which it arose.
Its musical history strengthened that reach. Crüger's tune entered Lutheran congregational repertory, was used by Johann Sebastian Bach, and received a prominent nineteenth-century treatment in Mendelssohn's Lobgesang. Winkworth's 1858 translation then enabled the hymn to move deeply into English-language hymnody, where it appears in Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Baptist, Mennonite, and ecumenical collections.
Modern hymnals use the hymn for harvest and thanksgiving services, weddings, anniversaries, Trinity observance, praise, and services centered on providence or guidance. Its continuing usefulness comes from a balance that remains pastorally strong: gratitude for what God has already given, honest prayer for what is still needed, and worship directed beyond every circumstance to the eternal God.
Musical Notes
The standard tune is NUN DANKET ALLE GOTT, composed by Johann Crüger and first paired with Rinkart's text in the 1647 edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica. Its meter is 6.7.6.7.6.6.6.6, matching both the German original and Catherine Winkworth's English translation. Modern hymnals often print an isorhythmic form in which note values have been regularized for congregational singing.
The tune follows bar form, commonly described as AAB, and its repeated opening musical material gives the long stanza a clear architectural shape. Hymnals print the melody in several keys, so key should be treated as an editorial choice rather than an essential property of the tune.
Felix Mendelssohn used the chorale in his 1840 Lobgesang, and many later hymnals draw their harmony partly from that setting. He should therefore be identified as a later harmonizer or adapter in those versions, not as co-composer of Crüger's melody. The historic text and tune are public domain, but contemporary descants, orchestrations, and other arrangements may have separate copyrights.
Application
- Use the hymn in thanksgiving, harvest, anniversary, wedding, or year-end worship as a prayer that joins memory with trust for the future.
- Practice gratitude by naming specific gifts from God while also bringing current needs and uncertainties honestly into prayer.
- Pair the hymn with Sirach 50:22-24 or Psalm 103:1-2 to show how remembering divine benefits strengthens faith.
- Use Philippians 4:6-7 to teach that thanksgiving and petition belong together rather than competing with one another.
- Let the final doxological movement turn gratitude away from self-satisfaction and toward worship of the Triune God.
Discussion Questions
- How does the hymn move from remembering past blessings to trusting God with the future?
- Why is it important to distinguish the hymn's early-1630s composition from the later plague of 1637 and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648?
- What does Sirach 50:22-24 contribute to our understanding of the hymn's original table-prayer setting?
- How do gratitude and petition reinforce one another in Philippians 4:6-7 and in the hymn's structure?
- Why does the hymn conclude with Trinitarian praise rather than simply ending with a list of blessings?
Teaching Tips
- Correct the common origin story: the hymn was already in print in 1636, before Eilenburg's devastating plague of 1637, and it was not written for the Peace of Westphalia.
- Introduce the original domestic setting as a table prayer and compare it with the hymn's later use at major public thanksgiving occasions.
- Read Sirach 50:22-24 alongside Psalm 103:1-2 to explore the biblical language of blessing, memory, mercy, and peace.
- Distinguish the musical roles clearly: Johann Crüger composed the tune, while Mendelssohn later used and harmonized the chorale in Lobgesang.
- Use the three-stanza movement as a teaching framework: remembrance of grace, prayer for continued care, and Trinitarian doxology.
Sources
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Hymnology Archive — Historical study of Rinkart's text, its 1636 printing, Crüger's 1647 tune, Winkworth's 1858 translation, and later reception
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Hymnary.org — Text authority for Martin Rinkart's thanksgiving hymn, Catherine Winkworth translation, meter, hymnal transmission, and public-domain status
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Hymnary.org — NUN DANKET tune authority and hymnal transmission
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Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — Martin Rinckart biographical article
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Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — Johann Crüger biographical article
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Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology — Catherine Winkworth biographical article
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Hymnary.org — Psalter Hymnal Handbook entry on the hymn's table-prayer origin, tune history, and Mendelssohn-derived harmonization
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, Sirach 50
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, Psalm 103
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, 1 Thessalonians 5
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, Philippians 4
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, James 1
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eBible.org — World English Bible Classic, Matthew 28
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