How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts to me (Daw)

Paraphraser: Carl P. Daw Jr.

Carl P. Daw, Jr. (b. Louisville, KY, 1944) is the son of a Baptist minister. He holds a PhD degree in English (University of Virginia) and taught English from 1970-1979 at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. As an Episcopal priest (MDiv, 1981, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennesee) he served several congregations in Virginia, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. From 1996-2009 he served as the Executive Director of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Carl Daw began to write hymns as a consultant member of the Text committee for The Hymnal 1982, and his many texts often appeared first in several small collections, including A Year of Grace: Hymns for the Church Year (1990); To Sing God’s Praise (1992), New… Go to person page >

Originally written for The Hymnal 1982 (1985), Daw's paraphrase borrowed snippets from the Scottish version (1650), and subsequently, his text is often confused with the Scottish text, but those two versions cannot be sung to the same tunes, because Daw's is 8.6.8.6.8.6, whereas the Scottish text is CM (or can be sung CMD). Daw revised and updated his paraphrase for his collection of Psalms, Praise, Lament, and Prayer, vol. 2 (2020).

—Chris Fenner