Hymns: Lion of Judah

I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the in-between hymns.

Today’s song is Lion of Judah from 1993.

It’s an Irish hymn with an Irish feel to it. But what’s a Lion of Judah?

It’s an Old Testament term that occurs in an early prophecy about Jesus. Before Jacob died, he spoke to each of his sons, one of which was Judah. And, as it happens, that’s the tribe that Jesus was descended from:

Genesis 49:9-10
You are a lion’s cub, Judah;
    you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
    like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he to whom it belongs shall come
    and the obedience of the nations shall be his.

It’s not a very explicit reference to Jesus, but when you get to the Book of Revelation, you see that the term is indeed applied to Jesus:

Revelation 5:5
⁵ Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

And then, you understand what was meant by the reference at the end of Genesis 49:10 – “until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.”

And in other parts of Scripture, God is sometimes compared to a lion:

Isaiah 31:4
⁴ This is what the Lord says to me:
“As a lion growls,
    a great lion over its prey—
and though a whole band of shepherds
    is called together against it,
it is not frightened by their shouts
    or disturbed by their clamor—
so the Lord Almighty will come down
    to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.

And the term features in other hymns too, such as the following:

And here are some other versions of today’s hymn: