Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us
Steve Green’s “Find Us Faithful” draws directly from this passage in its verses, with the chorus serving as a response:
Mark Schultz’s “Cloud of Witnesses” is a more imaginative take on the same passage, transporting the same concept to a modern context:
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels
John Newton developed the Sinai/Jerusalem contrast in his hymn “Not To Sinai’s Dreadful Blaze”
Not to Sinai’s dreadful blaze, But to Zion’s throne of grace, by a way marked out with blood, Sinners now approach to God.
Not to hear the fiery law, But with humble joy to draw Water by that well supplied, Jesus opened when he died.
Lord, there are no streams but thine, Can assuage a thirst like mine; ‘Tis a thirst thyself didst give, Let me therefore drink and live.
Michael Card’s song “Pilgrims to the City of God” draws from themes across chapters 11 and 12. But its bridge, the song’s musical and lyrical climax, is directly drawn from verse 22:
Awake, My Soul, Stretch Every Nerve (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Philip Doddridge Lyrics | Sheet Music
Great Cloud of Witnesses (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Popularized by Carolyn Arends YouTube | Amazon