The story behind the hymn
Anthony Showalter, a singing-school teacher in Alabama, received letters on the same day from two former students, each of whom had just lost his wife. Searching for words of comfort, he remembered Deuteronomy 33:27 — the eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms — and wrote it in both replies. The phrase would not leave him, and he sketched a refrain, then asked the hymn-writer Elisha Hoffman to supply the verses.
The hymn's whole comfort is a preposition: underneath. Whatever collapses on top of a life, something stronger holds it up from below. What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms? — the questions are rhetorical, because the arms are eternal.
It has a rare, restful joy: what a fellowship, what a joy divine... what a blessedness, what a peace is mine. And its final stanza faces the last enemy without flinching: I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms. Simple, unshakeable, and — as generations of the bereaved have found — exactly true.
The lyrics
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,Leaning on the everlasting arms;What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,Leaning on the everlasting arms;O how bright the path grows from day to day,Leaning on the everlasting arms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,Leaning on the everlasting arms?I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,Leaning on the everlasting arms.
Public domain. Free to sing, copy, print, and share.
The Scripture behind it
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.
Underneath are the everlasting arms — the verse Showalter wrote to two grieving men.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.
The LORD upholdeth him with his hand — the arms, from below.