![]() Rankin was and said this about the hymn, “Written…as a Christian goodbye, it was called forth by no person or occasion, but was deliberately composed as a Christian hymn on basis of the etymology of “goodbye,” which is “God be with you.” He got the idea for the first stanza of the song when he saw the dictionary definition of “good-bye” was short for “God be with you.” The song was written in 1882 when Rankin was 54 years old. It was simply composed so his church choir would have something to sing when they parted each week. This hymn “God Be With You Till We Meet Again”, was written by Jeremiah Rankin who was then the minister for the First Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. God be with you till we meet again has been my mourning song. ![]() And as I thought through the vanity of life, this hymn came to my mind so vividly. ![]() When it hurt so bad of course I turned to the Lord, but this friend many times along the way was the one to tell me to turn to God. This is a friend who when I fell in sin, gave me the spiritual bashing and made me feel the hurt of sin. Having met for the first time in 1984 the first week of our first year of secondary school at just 15 years old, the rest of our lives have been punctuated this elements that only qualify to be called – true friendship. This friend I lost was one I called a bosom friend. Instead they will walk with you and help you stand and sing the Lord’s song once again. They will rebuke you and show you their disgust for your sin, but they will not abandon you. One that is that really close, whether things are good or bad. I am a person who has so many friends but cannot really pinpoint one that I can call as Jesus had His John. Well this week I have chosen to write briefly about “God be with you” in memory of a childhood friend who went to be with the Lord a few weeks ago. Why this background to this hymn this week. So next time you say “goodbye”, remember the origin of the word is in fact a blessing. ![]() The substitution of good for God seems to have been mainly due to the influence of such phrases as “good day” and “good night”. “He flings up his tail.and so bids us good-b’wy.”Ī letter of 1573 written by Gabriel Harvey contains the first recorded use of goodbye: “To requite your gallonde of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes,” recalling another contraction that is still used. In a quote from 1659, we still have “god”: “But mum for that, his strength will scarce supply His Back to the Balcona, so God b’ wy.” And then by 1694, we have transitioned to “good” The first word of the expression is now good and not God, for good replaced God by analogy with such expressions as good day, perhaps after people no longer had a clear idea of the original sense of the expression. ![]() It is therefore helpful to see earlier forms of the expression, such as God be wy you, god b’w’y, godbwye, god buy’ ye, and good-b’wy. To understand this, I checked some dictionaries around and found this from the Mystagogy blog. We are all used to and actually often say the familiar, “goodbye.” We do it so often that we may not realize that we are actually using a shortened form of the phrase, “God be with you.” Few people are aware that the origin of the farewell greeting “goodbye” has its origin in a parting prayer: “God be with ye”. Smite death’s threatening wave before you, ![]()
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