I recall sitting in my office one day (I think it was a Saturday; I had to work Saturdays at the time) back when I lived in Florida, listening to the local Christian station on my radio. Suddenly I heard the strains of “Behold a Host, Arrayed in White,” (an English translation is at this link) and was astonished. This is not a hymn much known outside Scandinavian Lutheran circles, and down among the gators a lot of people had no idea what a Lutheran was, let alone a Scandinavian Lutheran.

The reason the radio station had that song, I later learned, was that they leased music from the University of Northwestern (St. Paul) radio network’s licensing library, and Scandinavian Lutheranism is pretty well known up in these parts.

In my mind, at least, “Behold a Host” is the preeminent Scandinavian choral hymn. My dad and my grandparents loved it. This recording has the Norwegian lyrics, whose first lines actually go “This great, white host we see, like a thousand mountains full of snow, before the Throne – who are they?”

It’s a reference to Revelation 7:13-17:

 13Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?” 14I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15“For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. 16“They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; 17for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

The text was written by Hans Adolph Brorson, a much-loved Danish pastor and hymn writer. The tune is, I believe, traditional, but this arrangement is by none other than Edvard Grieg.

This particular recording is of the choir of Augsburg College, Minneapolis, which happens to be my alma mater, though this performance was around 1945, somewhat before my time.