Break Thou the Bread of Life

I woke up this morning with some of the words to this song going through my mind. So happy I was able to find it here and so blessed to see in the comments that several others have been awakened in a similar way.

Love this Communion hymn. God bless!

This hymn, often sung in communion services, reminds me of John's gospel where Jesus said 'I am the bread of life'. While Jesus's body was crucified on the cross, he bore away the sins of the world.

if we repent of our sins and believe the gospel, we shall be saved and born again (1 Peter 1, 53 verse 1), and thus go to Heaven.

@Momoko Feb 17, 2018,

The Lord first blessed the loaves and then broke them, but the song has "break" in the first verse and "bless" in the last, so you have a good question. I think it is because v1 is about the bread of life, which the Lord both blessed and broke so we can eat it. So either word, "blessed" or "broke", would work in v1.

The last verse is about the truth, and it would be strange to say "break the truth". The word of truth needs to be rightly divided, which is symbolized by the breaking of the bread, but to say "break the truth" would give the wrong meaning. So only "bless", not "break", works in the last verse. Since the last verse must use the word "bless" it would be better to use the word "break" in the 1st verse to cover both actions that the Lord did.

"Loaves" to "bread" and "sea" to "Galilee" are just 2 ways of saying the same thing. In writing it is good to use a different word when repeating a thought to give more meaning. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, does that a lot.

I want to know why 1 " break the loaves by the sea" and the last one says " break the BREAD by Galilee" .

Why from "break" to bless,
why from loaves to bread,
why from sea to Galilee???
Who can explain these ??

This brought tears to my eyes as I read and sang along. So many memories from my youth in a little Reformed church in upstate New York. My mother was the organist and she played this often for preludes, postludes and more. Thank You Lord for this great hymn.

I to started singing these words this morning and was pleased to find the verses I had forgotten.This was one of my favourites as a child.

When I got up today, the Holy Spirit simply dropped the words of “Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord to me”. I had not heard this song for decades. I could not remember the words.

I am so glad that I located the words of a hymn that speaks directly to me at the right time. I thank Almighty God for this wonderful hymn.

Thank You Lord that we can seek You beyond the sacred page!

I am feasting on the Word of this hymn from my childhood. Our Church sang it a cappella. Many evenings as we gather to worship the LORD.