Hymn 421: solid joys and lasting treasure

Zion, city of our what?

“Dearly beloved, let us sing hymn number 421: Glorious things of thee are spoken.”

A well-known coda sounds out from the organ, familiar to our ears as the tune Austria, nowadays serving as Germany’s national anthem, written by Josef Haydn and based on a Croatian folk song. The congregation rises to its feet and, as the organ hammers out the first note of the first verse, an ebullient collation of voices bursts forth in a harmonious rendering of words written by reformed slave owner John Newton.

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He whose word cannot be broken
Formed thee for his own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

It’s an aspect of hymn-singing that together we throng in song without always fully understanding the words we are forming. Here, we learn that glorious things are spoken of Zion, which is the city of our God. God, whose word cannot be broken, formed Zion to live in, on a rock of ages, whose foundation cannot ever be shaken asunder. It is surrounded by salvation’s walls, allowing God to smile at everyone who hates him. Surely you understand it now?

Here is a rather fine clip of people singing those words.

In the third verse, they sing different words to those in the Scottish Hymnary. Our second half of that verse runs as follows:

Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood,
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.

And some congregations then sing a fourth verse:

Saviour, if of Zion’s city
I, through grace, a member am,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy Name.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.

This means that, because I’m a member of Zion through God’s grace, even if the world mocks me for doing so, I will praise the Lord. Then it gets difficult. I’m not sure how fading makes a worldling pleased. I’m not too sure what a worldling is, but I’m assured that joys that are solid and treasures that are lasting are known only to … well, to me and people like me who are members of Zion, and that is pretty much anyone who sings this song, and it is not as easy to sing as you think: it’s quite a range for the average voice.

Hymn 421 in the Scottish Hymnary comes under the section devoted to Affirmation, it being understood that it refers to affirmation of faith, which is where the congregation says, “Yes, I believe in God, and how!” That said, in all my years of singing this hymn, I never had much of a clue what it was about. I sang it because it has a rollicking good tune and the kind of words that public schoolboys enjoy chanting out. And it’s challenging, especially knowing how many notes apply to what part of the word “inhabitants”. But the greatest mystery for me was always knowing what is this place Zion? And to be honest, in my youth, I always thought it’s Heaven, because we were told that God lives in Heaven, so Zion is another word for Heaven.

And that was the sum total of the thoughts I devoted to trying to figure it out, because I didn’t really understand much of the rest of the hymn either. Zion is surrounded by salvation’s walls; so, what are they? What does it mean that people who live in Zion wash in blood? What is the Rock of Ages? Is that not the name of some other hymn? And how do you break a word anyway?

One thing is inescapable from this hymn: the word Zion figures in it no fewer than four times. The name of God Himself appears twice and Jesus’ name once. But Zion appears four times. So, what?

Well, that was, in fact, that. Until I heard Joe Biden in October 2023. Joe Biden, then president of the USA, made a public statement that he is a Zionist, and would always be a Zionist, and I suddenly remembered Glorious things of thee are spoken, and asked myself What is a Zionist? You see, I didn’t know what a Zionist was up to that point. Did you?

I am not frightened of confessing ignorance about something of which other people know much. As the hymn itself says, let the world deride or pity me, and, if the world is so bloody smart, then, tell me, what is Zion, which Mr Biden trots off his tongue as if everyone knew what he was talking about?

And, whilst you’re at it, you can tell me what a Calvinist is, and a Mennonite, and an Anabaptist. How about, what is a catechism and, if it’s so central to Roman Catholicism, why are we not born with an innate knowledge of it? Why don’t Russian Orthodox congregations ever speak? Why do the Free Church of Scotland sit down to sing and stand to pray? How can the head of the Church of England have the rank audacity to attend a service of praise to God whilst wearing his military medals? And where, aside from Illinois, is Zion?

Zion is a hill in Jerusalem, so Wikipedia tells me. And, because it’s a hill in Jerusalem, it means Jerusalem. And because it means Jerusalem, it means Israel. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Zion (Hebrew: צִיּוֹן, romanized: Ṣiyyôn;^[a] Biblical Greek: Σιών) is a placename in the Tanakh, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem^[3][4] as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole.

The name is found in 2 Samuel (2 Sam 5:7), one of the books of the Tanakh dated to approximately the mid-6th century BCE. It originally referred to a specific hill in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, located to the south of Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount). According to the narrative of 2 Samuel 5, Mount Zion held the Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was renamed the City of David. That specific hill (”mount”) is one of the many squat hills that form Jerusalem.

Now, that’s all very interesting, but how does all this relate to John Newton and his hymn? Which of these Zions is he talking about? And, if Zion is a nickname for a place known otherwise as Jerusalem, or City of David (which I had thought is Bethlehem: Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed …?), what, then, is a Zionist, pray tell me? I can’t really ask Mr Biden, you see.

Here’s what Wikipedia has taught me about Zionism:

Zionism^[a] is an ethnocultural nationalist^[b] movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe; it primarily seeks to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine,^[2] which roughly corresponds to the Land of Israel in Judaism—itself central to Jewish history.^[3] Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.^[4]

Late 19th century? John Newton died in 1807. So, the claim to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonisation of Palestine occurred a hundred years after Newton wrote Glorious things? And (mid-sixth century BC) about 2,500 years after the Tanakh was written? Approximately? I tried to sue a glossy magazine in Brussels that had used my services in 2019 and had to give up because the bill was only 400 euros and the claim expired after five years. Even positive prescription for land in Belgium is only 30 years. I don’t know a jurisdiction in the entire world where you can enforce a land claim that has gone unchallenged for 2,500 years; not, that is, without simply raising an army and snaffling the territory. That can also found a legal claim, but you have to make sure you win. For ever. And ever. Amen.

Some people sneer at Wikipedia. They deride and pity it. They say it’s propaganda, that it’s not the result of studious research, that it’s not scholarly. So, do I need to be a scholar to understand what the American president avowed to the TV cameras about his Zionist leanings? His support for colonialism and for augmenting the Jewish population in Zion and reducing the Arab population? I mean, he didn’t offer any explanation, he simply said, “I’m a Zionist.”

Is Zionism not to be understood as a colonial project to oust the Palestinians from Palestine? No? As what, then, is it to be understood? You see, while you may have a vague understanding of what constitutes the Roman Catholic catechism, or Mennonites, Calvinism, Anabaptism, and any other -ism you like, you can freely state that you disagree or that you are opposed to it, or that you abhor colonialists and the imperial mantras of non-entitled peoples inveighed over entitled peoples as a ground for dispossessing them of their land, like in Ukraine, or the tribal peoples of North America, or the tribal peoples of South America, or the tribal peoples of Australia, or the tribal peoples of New Zealand, or the election ward of Halle-Vilvoorde in Belgium, but there is one difference with Zionism: opposing all the others cannot get you sent to prison.

It can secure you a strident debate, or it can even get you your name on a ballot paper, if you feel that strongly about it. But opposing Zionism can get you imprisoned in a country where Zion is not located and there are no Zionists. And that is a very strange thing. Especially since there is no universal agreement—according to Wikipedia—as to what Zionism even is. Except that, if you oppose murder, and theft and cruelty when committed by those who revere the Tanakh as their foundational holy scripture, and which are all things the Tanakh opposes, then you are deemed, by them in particular, to be against their religion and against their politics and against their flagrant flouting of their own religious texts, even if you simply state that you’re against things that are against the statute law of your own country. Would that not be a nonsense to say it’s okay for some people in another country to steal and murder and be cruel, whereas my own country proscribes such things? If I did, then I would be against my country’s laws. That is sedition, and sedition is punishable. You may not oppose the rule of the ruler. So I agree with my country’s laws, which means I disagree with Israel’s actions, which nowadays means I’m acting contrary to my own country’s laws, which means, pretty much, I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t, as are we all. Every last one of us.

If I am to seek enlightenment through the pen of John Newton, I should conclude that Zionism is surrounded by the walls of salvation. By being redeemed by the Lord my God, I shall be granted entry into Zion, where, washed with the Redeemer’s blood, Jesus will make my soul a king and priest to God. This will be my lasting treasure, no pomp or boasting will I do. Streams of living waters will spring from eternal love, and Zion’s children shall never want for ever more: this current will quench our thirst for all time to come, and God’s grace will never fail us, from age to age. Where, then, in the words of Newton, is the desire to create this place with as much land, as many Jews and as few Arabs as possible? Did Newton not understand? Where did these images of Zion hail from that he put into such poetic expression? Why does he not mention the hurt, suffering and anguish of the Palestinians in his hymn? The eviction of 750,000 Arabs from their homeland and the murder of over 70,000 in the Gaza Strip? Where are all these streams of living waters, which the Christian is promised in such abundance by the city of Zion?

And why will policemen tie my hands and prosecute me for saying I find this whole sorry story a contrived fable designed to mislead, misguide and misappropriate? If whoever resides in Zion today smiles upon all their foes, then we can strike John Newton. For they have no foes. By law, the foes of the children of Zion are proscribed. We no longer need hymn 421.