These words (see also SDAH 692) are a direct quotation with repetition from Habakuk 2:20. Beltz has changed two words: “keep silence” becomes “be silent.”

Oliver Seth Beltz was born November 26, 1887, at Rush Center, Kansas, and studied at Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1905-1908. He completed study at Northwestern University for the B.Mus. degree in 1936, and the Ph.D. in 1944. Later he did graduate study at Harvard University Theological School. His teaching career in the SDA church included Lodi Normal Institute (where he led music for the preaching of E. G. White, S. N. Haskell, and J. N. Loughborough); Clinton German Seminary, four years; head of the music department, Union College, seven years; Broadview College (now Academy), 10 years; Atlantic Union College, two years; Washington Missionary College, four years; and Loma Linda University, four years. For 23 years he taught at his alma mater, Northwestern University, the last 14 years of which were as chairman of the department of church music, successor to Peter Christian Lutkin (see SDAH 669). He is recognized as one of the founders of the SDA Church Musician’s Guild, and the founder of the Endowment Fund for a chair in sacred music at the Theological Seminary, Andrews University. He edited and published a hymnal especially for musicians entitled Te Decet Laus (To Him Belongeth Praise), 1970, which is still being sold.

His productive life spanned 70 years, closely crowded with voice teaching; choir building and directing in Methodist, Presbyterian, and SDA churches across the country (Chicago, Detroit, Brooklyn, Toledo, Boston, and several California churches); oratorio choral work; church music institutes; and research in hymnology. At the time of his death, on December 16, 1978, he was living in retirement at Loma Linda, California.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.