The story behind the hymn
On the first anniversary of his conversion, Charles Wesley wanted to praise God and found one mouth insufficient. The hymn's title came, tradition says, from a remark by the Moravian Peter Bohler: had I a thousand tongues, I would praise Christ with them all. Wesley turned the wish into eighteen stanzas; hymnals keep the best six.
It became the opening hymn of Methodist hymnbooks for two centuries — a fitting front door, because it is about the impossibility of adequate praise and the glory of the name being praised: Jesus! the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease; 'tis music in the sinner's ears, 'tis life, and health, and peace.
The middle stanzas catalogue what that name does — cancels sin, sets the prisoner free, makes the wounded whole — and the last calls the whole company in: hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your Saviour come, and leap, ye lame, for joy.
The lyrics
O for a thousand tongues to singMy great Redeemer's praise,The glories of my God and King,The triumphs of His grace!
My gracious Master and my God,Assist me to proclaim,To spread through all the earth abroadThe honours of Thy name.
Jesus! the name that charms our fears,That bids our sorrows cease;'Tis music in the sinner's ears,'Tis life, and health, and peace.
He breaks the power of cancelled sin,He sets the prisoner free;His blood can make the foulest clean,His blood availed for me.
Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,Your loosened tongues employ;Ye blind, behold your Saviour come,And leap, ye lame, for joy.
Public domain. Free to sing, copy, print, and share.
The Scripture behind it
I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
His praise continually in my mouth — the hymn wishes for a thousand mouths to do it.
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
None other name — the name the hymn cannot stop praising.