Scripture References:
st. 1 = Mic. 4:1-2
st. 2 = Mic. 4:3
st. 3 = Mic. 4:34
ref. = Mic. 4:2

This song is based on Micah 4: 14, in which the prophet announces the rule of the LORD God in the last days, when the nations will flock to worship the LORD and peace shall reign. This prophecy will reach its fullest expression in the new heaven and earth, but Christians already see evidence of God's kingdom today wherever the Word of the LORD is proclaimed.

Calvin Seerveld (PHH 22) versified Micah's prophecy for the Psalter Hymnal in 1985 "to put this deeply comforting promise (found also in Isaiah 2:2-4) to song for God's people to sing."

Liturgical Use:
Advent; worship services focusing on justice and peace, God's kingdom, or the end of war; prayer for peace efforts by governments, leaders, or organizations.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

DIR, DIR, JEHOVA was published anonymously in Georg Wittwe's Musikalisches Handbuch der Geistlichen Melodien (1690). The bar form (AAB) melody was expanded in Johann A. Freylinghausen's Geistreiches Gesangbuch (1704), where it was set to a hymn by Bärtholomaus Crasselius, "Dir, dir, Jehovah, vill ich singen" ("To thee, Jehovah, will I sing"); it maintains basically that shape in the Psalter Hymnal. Dale Grotenhuis (PHH 4) composed the harmonization. WINCHESTER NEW (593) is a long-meter adaptation of the same tune; that tune's familiarity may help in learning this more rhythmically varied one. Though the entire piece could be sung in harmony, try this alternative: sing the stanzas in unison and the refrain in harmony–then choral harmony should indicate the "end of strife"!

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook