I once was a stranger to grace and to God,

I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;

Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu was nothing to me

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,

Isaiah’s wild measure, and John’s simple page;

But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,

Jehovah Tsidkēnu seemed nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,

I wept when the waters went over His soul;

Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree

Jehovah Tsidkēnu–’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, with light from on high

Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;

No refuge, no safety, in self could I see,–

Jehovah Tsidkēnu my Savior must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet Name;

My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came

To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free–

Jehovah Tsidkēnu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkēnu! My treasure and boast;

Jehovah Tsidkēnu! I ne’er can be lost;

In thee I shall conquer, by flood and by field–

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

–Robert Murray McCheyne

** “On November 18, 1834, Robert Murray McCheyne, of St. Peter’s Free Church, Dundee, Scotland, whose memory is like ointment poured forth, wrote his remarkable confession that his sins had caused Christ’s death. The title “Jehovah Tsidkēnu,” is the Hebrew for ‘The Lord our Righteousness.’ ” (from “Romans Verse by Verse“, by William R. Newell,  p 195)