17

Jehovah-Nissi⁠—The Lord My Banner

I

By whom was David taught
To aim the dreadful blow,
When he Goliath fought,
And laid the Gittite low?
No sword nor spear the stripling took,
But chose a peeble from the brook.

II

’Twas Israel’s God and King
Who sent him to the fight⁠—
Who gave him strength to sling,
And skill to aim aright.
Ye feeble saints, your strength endures,
Because young David’s God is yours.

III

Who order’d Gideon forth
To storm th’ invader’s camp,
With arms of little worth⁠—
A pitcher and a lamp?
The trumpets made his coming known,
And all the host was overthrown.

IV

Oh! I have seen the day
When, with a single word,
God helping me to say,
My trust is in the Lord,
My soul has quell’d a thousand foes,
Fearless of all that could oppose.

V

But unbelief, self-will,
Self-righteousness, and pride,
How often do they steal
My weapon from my side!
Yet David’s Lord and Gideon’s friend
Will help his servant to the end.

Where this text comes from

First published in Olney Hymns (1779). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2] [3]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-15.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/john-newton_william-cowper_olney-hymns, book-1.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L30.

Cite this poem

William Cowper (1731–1800). “Jehovah-Nissi⁠—The Lord My Banner.” First published in Olney Hymns (1779). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/william-cowper/jehovah-nissi-the-lord-my-banner/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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