What is the story behind “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”?
Tractor Staff asked 3 weeks ago
I’ve heard “A Mighty Fortress” called the battle hymn of the Reformation. Who wrote it, and what part of the Bible does it come from?
Tractor Staff answered 3 weeks ago
Martin Luther (1483–1546) wrote both the words and the melody, sometime between 1527 and 1529. Its German title is “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.”
The hymn is based on Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Luther turns the psalm into a confession that God defends His people and that Christ wins the battle they cannot win themselves.
No one knows the exact occasion. Historians have linked it to several moments of crisis in those years, including the Diet of Speyer in 1529. The earliest surviving printing dates from 1531; earlier hymnals thought to have contained it are lost.
It became known as the “Battle Hymn of the Reformation.” Protestant refugees sang it on the road into exile, the armies of Gustavus Adolphus sang it during the Thirty Years’ War, and J. S. Bach built a cantata on it for Reformation Day.
The English words in the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (number 506) are Frederic Henry Hedge’s translation, published in 1853.
Listen: A Mighty Fortress · More Sabbath music
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