Lord Jesu [Jesus], fountain of my life

Lord Jesu [Jesus], fountain of my life

Translator: Johann Christian Jacobi; Author: Martin Behm
Published in 2 hymnals

Translator: Johann Christian Jacobi

Jacobi, John Christian, a native of Germany, was born in 1670, and appointed Keeper of the Royal German Chapel, St. James's Palace, London, about 1708. He held that post for 42 years, and died Dec. 14, 1750. He was buried in the Church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. His publications included :— (1) A Collection of Divine Hymns, Translated from the High Dutch. Together with their Proper Tunes and Thorough Bass. London: Printed and Sold by J. Young, in St. Paul’s Churchyard; . . . 1720. This edition contains 15 hymns. Two years later this collection, with a few changes in the text and much enlarged, was republished as (2) Psalmodia Germanica; or a Specimen of Divine Hymns. Translated from the High Dutch. Together with their Proper Tunes… Go to person page >

Author: Martin Behm

Behm, Martin, s. of Hans Behm [Bohme, Boehm, Behemb, Behem, Boheim, Bohemus or Bohemius], town-overseer of Lauban in Silesia, was b. at Lauban, Sept. 16, 1557. During a protracted famine, 1574, Dr. Paul Fabricius, royal physician at Vienna, a distant kinsman, took him to Vienna, where he acted as a private tutor for two years, and then went to Strassburg, where, from Johann Sturm, Rector of the newly founded University, he received much kindness. Returning home at his mother's request after his father's death, May, 1580, he was, at Easter, 1581, appointed assistant in the Town School, and on Sept. 20, ordained diaconus of the Holy Trinity Church. After his senior had been promoted to Breslau the Town Council kept the post nominally vacant f… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Lord Jesu [Jesus], fountain of my life
Translator: Johann Christian Jacobi
Author: Martin Behm

Notes

O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht. [For the Dying.] His finest hymn. First published in a collection entitled Christliche Gebet, 1610, and then in his Zehen Sterbegebet, appended to his Centuria secunda, 1611 (see above), in 14 stanzas of 4 lines, entitled "Prayer fora happy journey home, founded upon the sufferings of Christ." Thence in Wackernagel, v. p. 235, Noldeke, 1857, p. 79, and the Unverfalschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 835. The translation in common use are:—

Lord Jesus Christ, my soul's desire. A good and full translation by Dr. John Ker in the Juv. Miss. Mag. of the United Presbyterian Church, May, 1858, p. 25. Stanzas i., iii, v., vii. form No. 49 in the Ibrox Hymnal, 1871.

--Excerpt from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Timeline