Lyrics
Sweet is the work, my God, my King,
To praise thy name, give thanks and sing,
To show thy love by morning light,
And talk of all thy truth at night.
Sweet is the day of sacred rest,
No mortal cares shall seize my breast;
O may my heart in tune be found,
Like David's harp of solemn sound!
My heart shall triumph in my Lord,
And bless his works, and bless his word;
Thy works of grace, how bright they shine!
How deep thy counsels! how divine!
Fools never raise their thoughts so high;
Like brutes they live, like brutes they die;
Like grass they flourish, till thy breath
Blast them in everlasting death.
But I shall share a glorious part
When grace hath well refined my heart;
And fresh supplies of joy are shed,
Like holy oil, to cheer my head.
Sin (my worst enemy before)
Shall vex my eyes and ears no more;
My inward foes shall all be slain,
Nor Satan break my peace again.
Then shall I see, and hear, and know
All I desired or wished below;
And every power find sweet employ
In that eternal world of joy.
Public domain hymn text (1719). Words by Isaac Watts, from Psalm 92.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Isaac Watts published 'Sweet Is the Work, My God, My King' in his 1719 collection The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, part of his larger project of rendering the Psalms in explicitly Christian, congregational hymn form rather than leaving them as more literal, unrhymed translations.
The hymn paraphrases Psalm 92, which opens, 'It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord… to shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night,' a psalm traditionally associated in Jewish practice with the Sabbath day itself.
Watts's opening word choice, calling praise 'sweet… work,' is deliberately paradoxical, naming an activity as both labor and pleasure at once, and treating worship not as a burden to be endured but as the one kind of work a tired soul might actually look forward to.
Its second verse turns specifically to 'the day of sacred rest,' asking that 'no mortal cares' intrude upon it, framing a set-apart day not primarily as a rule to be kept but as protected space where ordinary anxieties are meant to be genuinely set down rather than merely postponed.
Watts, already established as the leading figure in English hymn writing by the time of this publication, wrote extensively to give congregations biblically grounded texts in natural, singable English, moving hymnody away from strict psalm-only singing that had dominated much of English Protestant worship before him.
The hymn's closing image, comparing the heart's readiness for praise to 'David's harp of solemn sound,' reaches back to David's own reputation as a musician whose playing could calm a troubled spirit, tying the psalm's ancient authorship directly into the hymn's own request for a rightly tuned heart.
The hymn remained a standard text for Sabbath and Lord's Day worship across English-speaking Protestant hymnals for centuries, valued for treating rest and praise together as a single, integrated gift rather than as separate obligations.
