This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Show a little mercy
Show a little mercy
You may have won a great vict'ry,
and beaten your foe hands down.
And all because God was angry,
'cos your enemy's evil made him frown.
So show a little mercy now you're on top,
and be careful of what you do:
'Cos God is the one who gave your enemy the chop,
and you don't want it to happen to you!
You may have won a great battle
and beaten amazing odds:
but don't be boastful, or prattle
that the credit was your own, and not God's.
So show a little mercy ...
Now take a lesson from Oded
the prophet of God Most High!
And when your foes are exploded,
then you wanna show a merciful eye.
And show a little mercy ...
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2007.
Based on 2 Chronicles 28:9-11.
Story behind the song
2 Chronicles 28 was set as the Old Testament bible reading for Tuesday 5th June 2007, and Rev'd John Walker, one of the members of the Calverley Deanery Chapter, challenged me (in jest) to write a hymn on the ministry of the prophet Oded as recorded in verses 9-11 of that chapter. Oded meets the Israelite army which has just trounced the army of Judah and has taken plunder and many prisoners. He tells them not to behave as wickedly as king Ahaz of Judah has done: for the LORD was angry at Ahaz'z sins and that's why they've been victorious. They shouldn't be like Ahaz: instead, they should repatriate their fellow-countrymen and show mercy to them. Surely a message for modern times of genocide and vengeance.
So here is my answer. And you can hear me singing it here, although the quality of the performance is not that great!
The song made the basis of a school assembly the next day. And the head teacher told me it had been very relevant to some of the behaviour on the playground ... but I've seen no evidence of that myself!
I'm grateful for some comments from fellow-members of Christian Songwriting Organisation, which will be incorporated into the final version.
John Hartley.
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.