Hymn Story: A Broken Heart, My God, My Life

Recently we sung A Broken Heart, My God, My Life in church.  A hymn I had not heard before and wanted to learn more about.

A Broken Heart, My God, My Life was written by Isaac Watts.

Watts was a prolific writer. He wrote sermons, treatises, poems and hymns. Often he wrote hymns to be sung with his sermons. He wrote over 800 hymns and is best remembered as “the greatest name among hymn-writers.”

Some of Watts other hymns are Redeemed How I Love to Proclaim It, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, At the Cross, We’re Marching to Zion, Alas and Did My Savior Bleed, and I Sing the Mighty Power of God.

The tune is titled Wittenberg and composed by Joseph Klug. He was born in 1500 in Nuremberg, Germany. He also wrote Geistliche Lieder which Martin Luther edited. Little else is known about Joseph Klug. He died in 1552 in Wittenberg, Germany.