Sacred Harp 133 Hebrew Children

Like many Sacred Harp songs, the words refer to a passage in the Bible. The 'Hebrew Children' in this song refer to a characters in a story in the Book of Daniel. The Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, ordered three young Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego, to be thrown into a fiery furnace after they refused to worship other gods. God's intervention caused them to escape unharmed.

Other verses in the song refer to Christian martyrs and believers.

This song was recorded at the Harrod's Creek Shape Note Convention in April of 2009.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Sacred
• Harp
• shape
• note
• fasola
• singing
• Kentucky

[PLBrayfield]

@Archonymus Perhaps the compiler of the 1844 ed of Sacred Harp, B.F.White, set these words to an existing folk tune. This would not have been at all unusual, nor is it unusual for songs (such as Idumea) to be seen in variant versions in different tunebooks or folk traditions. I have a recording of a song about the Irish potato famine which is set to the tune I know as Wondrous Love, which is a variant of an old English ballad, 'Captain Kidd', for example.

[Archonymus]

Great song, great performance.

For some incomprehensible reason the English folk group "The Young Tradition" used this tune in an LP recording c. 1972 to carry the North country miners' song ' Byker Hill'. (They also did Idumea, oddly recasting it in duple time). Some of their performances are on Youtube.