JESUS CHRIST >> SUFFERINGS & DEATH
SDAH 158
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Text
1
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
2
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
3
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they pierced Him in the side?
4
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
5
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Hymn Info
Biblical Reference
(a) John 19:18 (b) John 20:25 (c) John 19:42 (d) John 20:9
Text Source
American Negro Spiritual
Metrical Number
10.10.4.10.
Hymn Score
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Piano Accompaniment
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Notes
Get to know the hymns a little deeper with the SDA Hymnal Companion. Use our song leader’s notes to engage your congregation in singing with understanding. Even better, involve kids in learning this hymn with our homeschooling materials.
This is perhaps the most universally used spiritual in all the hymnals of Cristendom. With a variant form of the first phrase, it first appeared in print in Old Plantation Hymns, compiled by William E. Barton in 1899. Frederick J. Work printed it with this traditional music in Folk Songs of the American Negro,1907.
The primary poetic analogy is that all of us were there at Calvary, by virtue of the fact that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom.3:23).
The secondary analogy is in His suffering, especially for the slaves. The death of Jesus took on a deep and personal poignancy. It was not merely the death of a man or God, but there was a quality of identification in it that continued to burn its way deep into the heart of even the most unemotional. The suffering of Jesus on the cross was something more; He suffered, He died, but not alone, because in imagery they, the slaves, were with Him throughout all the phases of that agonizing death. They knew something of what He suffered. It was a cry of the heart that found an echo and response in their own woes.
Sometimes another stanza is added, “Were you there when He rose up from the grave?” The melody, except for the A-flat in the last line, is predictably in the pentatonic mode.
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