Stricken, smitten and afflicted

Hymn X, page 8. 8s.7s.D.
Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Isa. liii. 4.

1. “Stricken, smitten and afflicted,”
See him dying on the tree!
’Tis the Christ by man rejected!
Yes, my soul, ’tis he, ’tis he!
’Tis the long expected prophet,
David’s son, yet David’s Lord;
Proofs I see sufficient of it:
’Tis a true and faithful word.

2. Tell me, ye who hear him groaning,
Was there ever grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning,
Foes insulting his distress.
Many hands were raised to wound him,
None would interpose to save;
But the awful stroke that found him,
Was the stroke that justice gave.

3. Ye who think of sin but lightly,
Nor suppose the evil great;
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed!
See who bears the awful load!
’Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

4. Here we have a firm foundation:
Here’s the refuge of the lost;
Christ’s the rock of our salvation;
His the name of which we boast:
Lamb of God for sinners wounded!
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.

“Stricken, smitten and afflicted” is another good hymn by Thomas Kelly (1769–1855). Kelly was a minister of the Church of Ireland from the time of his ordination in 1792 to 1803. That year he broke away from the Church of Ireland. Rowland Hill, William Romaine, John Walker, and the Haldane brothers all influenced his evangelical views.

This hymn is often set with the tune O Mein Jesu, Ich Muss Sterben (“O my Jesus, I must die), first published in Geistliche Volkslieder in 1850.

Kelly was also a prolific hymnist. He wrote over 700 hymns. These were published in A Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1802), Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (1804), Hymns of Thomas Kelly, Never Before Published (1815), and other places. “Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious” is possibly his best-known hymn. “Stricken, smitten and afflicted” can be found on page 8 of Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture (Fifth Edition, Thomas Kelly, Dublin: Martin Keene, 1820).