This hymn by Frederik Kaan (1929– ) was published in 1968 and entitled “The First and Final Word,”which are the last words of the last line of the hymn. It encompasses the fact that the Hebrew word dabar not only means “word” but also can be translated as “deed”; in other words, as the author says, “Whenever God speaks, things happen.” In the New Testament, the Greek word logos is generally translated “word,” but it is also given as “work” or “actions”(not “men and nations”). The text uses Scripture references. For example: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1, 2). “For He spake, and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast” (Ps. 33:9). These are statements that show cause and effect as a logical process of speech and action.

The tune NEW MALDEN was composed in 1971 by David Wyn McCarthy, who was born April 2, 1931, in a small mining village near Wrexham in Wales. He studied English and theology at Cambridge University and attained the Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. He taught English at the Methodist boarding school for boys near Bradford and, beginning in 1960, was the director of music there as well as being a Methodist local preacher. The tune was specially written for these words of Fred Kaan to be used in McCarthy’s school chapel service. However, it was first printed in 1971 in Fred Pratt Green’s Twenty-Six Hymns in a hymn entitled “A Mature Faith.” The tune derives its name from a suburb of Greater London, New Malden, which is in Surrey, about 10 miles southwest of the city center. It was the home of John Farmer and honors his name and the work he did in initiating the music weekend courses of “Youth Makes Music.” It is worthy of note that the melody of the third and fourth lines is exactly a third above the melody of the first two lines, with the exception of the last note.