Paraverse 5 — Movement 1: The God Who Is
This song sits in the doctrine of God (theology proper), and gives the Water and Thirst thread its own dedicated Movement-1 station — the canon's counterpart to Paraverse 4's Light station. It takes the one figure Scripture uses for God's own self-naming under this thread — Me, the fountain of living waters (Jer 2:13) — and holds it to two edges: the most inward (God as the alone fountain of all being, drawing from Himself, needing no other source — WCF 2.2's aseity confession in fountain-image) and the most outward (God as the overflowing fountain of all good, the source from whom every gift flows — Belgic Article 1's central phrase). The locus is aseity confessed under the Water/Thirst image, with inexhaustibility (the Fount that does not fail) and source-of-all-good (the overflowing fountain) gathered into one figure.
The register is the divine self-disclosure (chosen over the rejection-and-lament context Jer 2:13 sits in): the verse is sung for what God says of Himself, not for what the people did against Him (the forsaking and the broken cisterns are Movement-3 territory). The song does not press the rebuke; it confesses positively that the LORD is the fountain, that He needs no other source, and that all life flows from Him. The five stanzas move thesis (V1, the self-disclosure), aseity (V2, the Fount that draws from Himself), the overflowing good (V3, Belgic Art. 1), immutability (V4, the Fount that does not fail), and the creature's adoration (V5, the worshipper before the Source).
This is the fountain-in-Himself only. The Water/Thirst thread's other stations are deferred to their movements: the waters of creation and the deep (Movement 2), the parched land and the thirsting soul (Movement 3), the Servant springing up from dry ground (Movement 4), I thirst from the cross and the living water Christ gives (Movements 5–6), the Spirit poured out (Movement 7), the cup of the Supper (Movement 8), the river of the water of life and the free invitation (Movement 9). Movement 1 confesses that God is the Fountain, before any pouring out.
The form is a stanzaic confession: five Long-Metre stanzas (8.8.8.8, ABCB) in third-person declarative voice, no refrain. After Paraverse 4's warm second-person ethereal-hymn, this song returns to the canon's Psalter-confession mainstream — the steady declarative confession the Skrifberymings and the Scots Paraphrases inherit from the 1650 Metrical Psalter and the broader Watts / Doddridge LM tradition. The even 8.8.8.8 lets each confessional sentence extend fully — no compressed short lines — which suits the song's flowing, sustained, steady character (the Source rendered as the unbroken even phrase). The title-confession (Fountain of Life) sits in S1L1; the Name-thread closing (adore His holy Name) sits in S5L4.
The Water-of-God texts are the spine. The stanzas move self-disclosure → aseity → overflow → immutability → adoration.
Stanza 1 — the self-disclosure: the LORD is the Fountain (Jer 2:13; Ps 36:9) - Jeremiah 2:13 — they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters (L1 Fountain of life so deep and pure; the divine self-naming extracted from the rebuke-context) - Psalm 36:9 — with You is the fountain of life (L1, the title confession) - L2 — unfailing, full, abundant, free (the Fountain's character — perennial, overflowing, gratis; Belgic Art. 1's overflowing) - L3–4 — no other spring our world has known — the LORD Himself, alone, is He (unicity: there is no other source; cf. Isa 45:5)
Stanza 2 — aseity: the Fount that draws from Himself (WCF 2.2; Acts 17:28) - WCF 2.2 — He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things (the whole stanza) - Romans 11:36 — from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (L3–4, the source-relation) - L1–2 — He needs no stream to feed His flow, no other Spring beyond His own (the Fount draws from no other; aseity confessed) - L3–4 — from everlasting waters rise from God Himself, and God alone (Ps 90:2 from everlasting; the Fount as Source, not Sourced)
Stanza 3 — the overflowing fountain of all good (Belgic Art. 1; James 1:17; Ps 145:16) - Belgic Confession Art. 1 — the overflowing fountain of all good (L1, the central confessional phrase, directly sung) - L2 — the source of all that breathes and lives (the source-relation; Acts 17:28 in Him we live and move and have our being) - James 1:17 — every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights (L3–4, sung verbatim in L3 — every good and perfect gift — the strongest direct quotation in the stanza) - Psalm 145:16 — You open Your hand (L4 comes from His open hand that gives — the giving-Source confession in its own Scripture-given image)
Stanza 4 — immutability of the Fountain (Mal 3:6; Ps 102:27; Belgic Art. 1 immutable) - L1–2 — The years cannot dry up His spring, nor any season make Him fail (the Fount that does not run dry — inexhaustibility as the Source's mode of immutability) - Malachi 3:6 — I the LORD do not change (L3 the same in flood, the same in drought) - Psalm 102:27 — You are the same, and Your years have no end (L4 His ceaseless fullness will prevail) - Carries forward Paraverse 4's immutability hook, now in Water idiom — the two threads' Movement-1 stations confess the same unchanging God
Stanza 5 — the creature adores the Fountain (Acts 17:28; Ps 90:2; the Name) - Psalm 90:2 — from everlasting to everlasting You are God (L1 From everlasting He has been) - L2 — the Fount that none can ever drain (the inexhaustibility carried into the adoration) - Acts 17:28 — in Him we live and move and have our being (L3 and we, who only draw from Him — the creature drawing from the Source, not yet drinking-and-being-satisfied — that is Movement 7) - L4 — with awe adore His holy Name (Movement-1's named mode adoration, awe, sung explicitly; the Name thread closing the song; cf. Ps 145:1 I will bless Your name)
Why a dedicated Water/Thirst Movement-1 station. Paraverse 4 gave the Light thread its own room; the Water/Thirst thread requires the same symmetry. Without a Movement-1 station, the thread would enter the canon at Movement 2 (the waters of creation) without first being confessed of God Himself — which is what the framework's Movement-1 line for this thread requires (God as the fountain of living water and source of all good). The thread's Movement-1 confession is aseity-as-fountain: the Source before there is anything sourced.
Why third-person declarative, no refrain. Paraverse 4 was warm second-person You with a hook. After that warmth, the canon needs to return to its Psalter-confession mainstream — the steady declarative confession the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter, the Skrifberymings, and the Scots Paraphrases inhabit. The third-person He / the LORD of Stanzas 1–4 is the Belgic Article 1 register sung — He is the overflowing fountain. The voice widens to gathered-church we only at S5, and even there the adoration is offered of the Fountain (third-person), not invocation to it. No refrain: the Skrifberyming-Psalter convention for stanzaic doctrinal songs is stanzas-only (Paraverses 1 and 3 both have refrains for specific structural reasons; Paraverse 2 and now Paraverse 5 are stanzas-only).
Why Long Metre, not Common Metre. LM (8.8.8.8) lets every confessional sentence extend fully — no compressed 6-syllable lines forcing the doctrine into a punch-and-resolve cadence. The even 8.8.8.8 phrase length supports the song's steady, sustained, flowing character: the Source is rendered as the unbroken even line, not as alternating long-and-short. This is the canon's second LM song after Paraverse 1 (None like You) — the two LM Movement-1 confessions pair: Paraverse 1 the Athanasian attribute-stack, Paraverse 5 the Belgic Article 1 water-figure. LM is also a historic paraphrase metre — Veni Creator Spiritus, Watts's When I Survey, several Scots Paraphrases — so the lineage is undisturbed. CM was the obvious first move; LM is the form that lets this particular Water-thread Movement-1 confession breathe.
Why the divine self-disclosure, not the rebuke. Jeremiah 2:13 sits in the broken cisterns lament. The song extracts only the divine self-disclosure — Me, the fountain of living waters — and confesses it positively. The rebuke-context (forsaking, cisterns) is Movement-3 territory (the Fracture); confessing the self-disclosure as Movement-1 honours the verse's theological content (God's self-naming) without anticipating the lament. The same surgical extraction the canon does with Isaiah 6:5 — my eyes have seen the King — sung in Paraverse 3 without the Woe is me being the song's mode.
Why the title in S1L1. Fountain of Life (Ps 36:9) is named at the song's opening so the entire song reads as expounding the title-confession. The pattern mirrors Paraverse 2 (My God and King, S1L1) — the title-confession sung first, then unfolded. Paraverse 4 placed the title in the hook (Father of lights); this song has no hook, so the title sits in the opening line.
Why Stanza 4 is the immutability of the Fountain, paired with Paraverse 4's hook. Paraverse 4's hook confessed the immutability of the Light; Stanza 4 of this song confesses the immutability of the Water. The two threads' Movement-1 stations name the same Belgic Article 1 immutable — a deliberate canonical pairing. The Light that does not change and the Fountain that does not fail are the same unchanging God under two images.
Why the closing turns to the Name. Stanza 5L4 (adore His holy Name) closes the song on the Name thread — the canon's only Movement-1 station yet to receive its own dedicated song. By gathering the Water-thread confession into Name-thread adoration, the song does what Movement 1 calls for: the church adores the divine nature under multiple Scripture-given figures, and the figures resolve into the one Name. The Name's own dedicated Movement-1 station remains to come.
The trade-off, named. This song is the most overtly aseity-shaped in the canon so far — Stanza 2 confesses the Fount drawing from itself, which is a hard doctrine simply rendered. The risk is opacity: a congregation singing He needs no stream to feed His flow, no spring beyond His own must understand that this is aseity. The defence is that the figure carries the doctrine without needing technical vocabulary: every congregation knows what a spring that needs no source means. The figure is harder to mis-hear than the abstract word aseity.
Inside the Skrifberyming and Scots Paraphrase tradition directly. A doctrinal-attribute song in Long Metre, third-person declarative, stanzas-only, ABCB rhyme — every formal feature of this song is the Psalter-paraphrase tradition's own discipline. LM is one of the historic paraphrase metres (alongside CM and SM); the Scots Paraphrases and the GKSA Skrifberymings both use it. The Skrifberyming tradition routinely versifies divine self-disclosures (the Exodus 34:6 disclosure, the I AM of Exodus 3:14, the Sanctus of Isaiah 6) in stanzaic confession; this song versifies the Jeremiah 2:13 self-disclosure under the same discipline.
The primary antecedent named: "There Is a Fountain" (William Cowper, 1772). The English-hymn tradition's most-sung fountain hymn — "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins." The image is the same; the meaning is entirely different. Cowper's fountain is the atonement — the blood of Christ shed at the cross, the Movement-6 territory. This song's Fountain is the divine self-disclosure — God Himself confessed under His own Jer 2:13 self-naming, the Movement-1 territory. Different referent, different doctrine, different movement. The defence is the doctrinal distance, not a different image: the figure fountain is Scripture-given to both senses (Jer 2:13 for the divine self-naming; Zech 13:1 for the cleansing-fountain). Cross-checked: no line, phrase, or rhyme borrowed.
The second antecedent named: "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" (Robert Robinson, 1758). The English-hymn tradition's other major fount hymn — "Come, Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace." Robinson's Fount is in genuine Movement-1 register (the source-name), but the song's voice (second-person invocation, Come, Thou) and pivot (tune my heart, the personal-affective register, then rescued from danger in S2 — atonement / Movement 6) place it differently. This song's Fountain is confessed in third-person declarative (The LORD Himself is He), not invoked; stays in Movement-1 throughout (no Movement-6 pivot); and lands on adore His holy Name (Movement-1 awe), not on personal affect. Cross-checked: no shared text. Note especially that this song never uses Robinson's Fount of every blessing phrase — the canon's phrase is the Belgic phrase, overflowing Fount of good (S3L1), not Robinson's.
The GKSA Psalmboek Psalm 36 setting versifies Psalm 36:9 (by U is die fontein van die lewe) in Genevan metre, in Afrikaans — adjacent material, distinct language, distinct metre. This song is in English Long Metre, fuses Psalm 36:9 with Jeremiah 2:13 and Belgic Article 1, and is a doctrinal-attribute song rather than a Psalm-paraphrase. The lineage is the discipline (Psalter-bound, third-person declarative, stanzaic); the text is original.
No borrowed text from any Skrifberyming, Scots Paraphrase, Psalmboek setting, or English hymn. Verified mentally against the Cowper, Robinson, Faber (There's a Wideness), Watts (Joy to the World — the floods… the floods, distinct), and the standard Reformed fountain-register material. The lineage is form-and-intent.
"Jeremiah 2:13 is a rebuke — they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves. Isn't singing it as adoration tearing the verse from its lament context?" — No. The verse contains a divine self-disclosure (Me, the fountain of living waters) that the rebuke turns on. The disclosure is Scripture's own naming of God under the Water figure; the song confesses the disclosure as Movement-1 territory (the divine nature) and reserves the rebuke for Movement 3 (the Fracture). The same surgical extraction is what the canon already does with Isaiah 6:5 — my eyes have seen the King sung as Movement-1 awe (Paraverse 3), with the Woe is me held in the same stanza but not made the song's mode. The verse's content is honoured; its rhetorical function is held in its proper movement.
"Isn't fountain a Christological figure (John 4, 7; Zech 13:1)? Doesn't using it in Movement 1 anticipate Movement 5/6?" — No. Scripture predicates the fountain figure of the LORD Himself in the Old Testament directly: the fountain of living waters (Jer 2:13, God's own self-naming), with You is the fountain of life (Ps 36:9). These are Movement-1 confessions. John 4 and John 7 are the Christ-pivot of the same figure (Movement 5–6); Zech 13:1 is the cleansing register (Movement 6). The song stays inside the OT Movement-1 sense — the divine self-naming under the Water figure — and lets the Christ-pivot be Movement 5/6's work.
"Isn't every good and perfect gift (S3L3) Movement 8 (the grateful life) or Movement 2 (creation's goodness)?" — No. The line sings James 1:17 verbatim — and James 1:17 is itself the Movement-1 source-confession (every good and perfect gift comes down from above, **from the Father of lights — the source-relation named explicitly, the same Father confessed in Paraverse 4). The Ps 145:16 open hand in L4 is the providential register sung as source, not as response (Heidelberg Q&A 27 — the upholding hand of God is Movement-1 territory, distinct from Movement-8 grateful-life). The Movement-8 register is the grateful response of the daily life; the Movement-2 register is the order of creation as good. Movement 1's register is God is the Source from whom all good flows — which is what S3 confesses with James 1:17 and Ps 145:16 directly.
"Isn't a song built on aseity (S2) too abstract for ordinary congregational singing?" — No. The figure does the doctrinal work without technical vocabulary: He needs no stream to feed His flow, no spring beyond His own says aseity in language any singer can hear. The same congregations sing Paraverse 1's Great I AM (Ex 3:14, aseity in Name-form); this song sings the same doctrine in Water-form. The figure is the catechesis.
"Doesn't the third-person voice make the song cold after Paraverse 4's warm second-person You?" — Not cold; declarative. The voice contrast is deliberate: Movement 1 needs both the intimate-second-person register (Paraverse 4) and the steady-third-person Psalter register (Paraverse 2 and 5). A canon that sang only in second-person You would be contemporary-worship inflection; a canon that sang only in third-person He would be cold confession. The two voices together are the Psalter's own range (Ps 145 and Ps 36 themselves move between them).
"Is the Water figure RPW-safe, or poetic decoration?" — Scripture predicates the fountain of God Himself, directly: the fountain of living waters (Jer 2:13) is God's own self-naming. With You is the fountain of life (Ps 36:9) is direct predication. Belgic Article 1 — the Reformed confession the Skrifberyming tradition itself anchors to — names God as the overflowing fountain of all good. The figure is not decoration; it is the confessional language of the tradition.
"Is making the title Fountain of Life (Ps 36:9) rather than Fountain of Living Waters (Jer 2:13) a softening?" — No. Fountain of Life names the same divine reality from Psalm 36:9 in a clean Movement-1 register, without the immediate lament-context of Jeremiah 2 needing to be carried in the title. The Jer 2:13 self-disclosure is sung explicitly in S1L1's Fountain of Life (the Ps 36:9 phrase) plus S1L3–4 (the no other spring exclusivity that Jer 2:13's rebuke turns on). The title is doctrinally accurate and lineage-distinguishing (no English hymn carries Fountain of Life as its title in this Movement-1 sense).
"Why English, and why no refrain?" — See Paraverse 1, §6 for English. No refrain: the Skrifberyming-Psalter convention for stanzaic doctrinal songs is stanzas-only. Paraverse 1's Sanctus refrain was defended as a recovery of an older Reformed-and-catholic practice for a specific liturgical reason; Paraverse 3's half-speed refrain was defended as the prophet's seeing-confession answering the seraphs' Sanctus. This song's argument is Belgic Article 1 sung as a confession; a refrain would impose a non-Psalter shape on a Psalter-shaped text.
The lyric will be approved when it satisfies:
Words and music by Attie Retief.
Fountain of life so deep and pure, unfailing, full, abundant, free; no other spring our world has known — the LORD Himself, alone, is He.
He needs no stream to feed His flow, no other Spring beyond His own; from everlasting waters rise from God Himself, and God alone.
The overflowing Fount of good, the source of all that breathes and lives; every good and perfect gift, comes from His open hand that gives.
The years cannot dry up His spring, nor any season make Him fail; the same in flood, the same in drought — His ceaseless fullness will prevail.
From everlasting He has been the Fount that none can ever drain; and we, who only draw from Him, with awe adore His holy Name.
| Stanza | Warrant |
|---|---|
| S1 L1 — Fountain of life so deep and pure, L2 — unfailing, full, abundant, free; L3 — no other spring our world has known — L4 — the LORD Himself, alone, is He. |
L1 — Ps 36:9 (with You is the fountain of life); Jer 2:13 (Me, the fountain of living waters — the divine self-disclosure, extracted from the rebuke-context). L2 — Jer 2:13 (living waters — perennial); Belgic Art. 1 (overflowing fountain of all good — full, abundant, free). L3 — Isa 45:5 (there is no God beside Me) applied to the Source-confession. L4 — the title-confession: God Himself, alone, is the Fountain (not a created spring); unicity reinforced. Confessional: Belgic Art. 1; WCF 2.1. |
| S2 L1 — He needs no stream to feed His flow, L2 — no other Spring beyond His own; L3 — from everlasting waters rise L4 — from God Himself, and God alone. |
L1–2 — WCF 2.2 (alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures); aseity confessed under the Water figure. L3 — Ps 90:2 (from everlasting to everlasting You are God). L4 — Rom 11:36 (from Him and through Him and to Him are all things); WCF 2.2 (the alone fountain of all being). Confessional: WCF 2.2; Heidelberg Q&A 26 (out of nothing); Athanasian Creed (uncreated). |
| S3 L1 — The overflowing Fount of good, L2 — the source of all that breathes and lives; L3 — every good and perfect gift, L4 — comes from His open hand that gives. |
L1 — Belgic Art. 1, verbatim (the overflowing fountain of all good). L2 — Acts 17:28 (in Him we live and move and have our being); WCF 2.2 (fountain of all being). L3 — James 1:17, verbatim (every good and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights). Providential source-relation, not Movement-2 creation-narrative or Movement-8 gratitude. L4 — Ps 145:16 (You open Your hand) — the giving-Source confession in its own Scripture-given image; Heidelberg Q&A 27 (the upholding hand). Confessional: Belgic Art. 1; WCF 2.2; Heidelberg Q&A 27. |
| S4 L1 — The years cannot dry up His spring, L2 — nor any season make Him fail; L3 — the same in flood, the same in drought — L4 — His ceaseless fullness will prevail. |
L1–2 — the Fount that does not run dry (inexhaustibility as the Source's mode of immutability). L3 — Mal 3:6 (I the LORD do not change); Heb 13:8 (the same) applied to the Source. L4 — Ps 102:26-27 (they will perish, but You will remain... You are the same); Belgic Art. 1 (immutable); ceaseless names the inexhaustibility. Carries forward Paraverse 4's immutability hook in Water idiom. Confessional: Belgic Art. 1 (immutable); WCF 2.1 (immutable). |
| S5 L1 — From everlasting He has been L2 — the Fount that none can ever drain; L3 — and we, who only draw from Him, L4 — with awe adore His holy Name. |
L1 — Ps 90:2 (from everlasting to everlasting You are God). L2 — inexhaustibility carried into the adoration; Jer 2:13 (the living / never-failing waters). L3 — Acts 17:28 (in Him we live and move and have our being) — the creature drawing from the Source; not the drinking-and-being-satisfied of Movement 7. L4 — Ps 145:1, 21 (bless His holy name); Heidelberg Q&A 122 (hallowed be Thy Name); Movement-1's named mode (adoration, awe) sung explicitly. Confessional: Heidelberg Q&A 122; Belgic Art. 1. |