1 Chronicles 17:16-17 vs. “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)”

Chris Tomlin · checked 2026-08-01

What we checked

Passage1 Chronicles 17:16-17 chapter ↗

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

AlbumSee the Morning · 2006

Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)

Teaching or experiencemixed

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Never says it is quoting, anywhere: no verse cited, no translation named, nothing framed as scripture
The passage behind it is documented rather than guessed. Newton printed 1 Chronicles 17:16-17 as the hymn's heading in *Olney Hymns*, 1779
Newton's original title, "Faith's Review and Expectation," restates the two directions of David's prayer: back over what God has done, forward into what God has promised
The stanza about God having promised good and being the singer's shield and portion holds the forward half of the passage, which is the half a four-minute song usually drops
The version closes with Newton's own final stanza rather than the later one most hymnals print, which is a small act of care with someone else's text
The added chorus names God as the one who ransomed the singer, which is something scripture says plainly and not something the song has invented

⚠ Cautions

The chorus is Tomlin and Giglio's, written in 2006. Many people now sing it as part of "Amazing Grace" without knowing it is not part of "Amazing Grace"
The stanza about ten thousand years, which most singers assume is Newton's, is not his either. It first appears anonymously in 1790 and joined this hymn in 1910. This version leaves it out
The passage's note is astonishment at unearned favour toward someone with no claim on it. The chorus's note is release from bondage. Both are true and they are not the same note, so the song's centre of gravity sits a little to one side of the text it came from
No reference appears in the song, so nobody will learn the passage by singing it. Those two verses have to be read separately

Verse Proof

1 Chronicles 17:16-17

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Then King David went in, sat before the LORD, and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And as if this was a small thing in Your eyes, O God, You have spoken about the future of the house of Your servant and have regarded me as a man of great distinction, O LORD God.”

David is speaking, and he is answering God. The prophet Nathan has just told him that he will not be the one to build a house for God, and that God will instead build a house for him: a line of descendants that will outlast his own reign. Verses 16 and 17 are David's response, prayed sitting down in front of the LORD. He asks who he is that God has brought him this far, and then says that even that was a small thing in God's eyes next to what God has now said about his family's future. The prayer runs in two directions at once, back over what has already happened and forward into what has only been promised.

What the song says, described not quoted

The song is John Newton's hymn with a new melody and a chorus that Newton did not write. Four of Newton's six original stanzas are sung: the opening one, in which the singer's only qualification is having been lost and blind and now found and seeing; the one about grace producing fear and then relieving it; the one about God having promised good and being the singer's shield and portion for as long as life lasts; and Newton's own closing stanza, in which the earth dissolves and the sun stops shining and God is still the singer's. Between them repeats a chorus written by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio, in which the singer's chains are gone, the singer has been set free, and God is named as the Savior who paid the ransom. No verse is cited anywhere in the song, no translation is named, and nothing in it is framed as a quotation of scripture.

Nothing shifted between the passage and the song, because none of the passage's words are in the song at any point. The connection sits one step further back and it is documented. Newton published the hymn in *Olney Hymns* in 1779 under the title "Faith's Review and Expectation," with 1 Chronicles 17:16-17 printed as its heading, and the Cowper and Newton Museum dates its composition to the weeks before his New Year's Day service of 1 January 1773, which was preached on those same two verses. Newton's title is the passage's two directions restated in four words. Review is the backward look, expectation is the forward one. Tomlin's version keeps four of the six stanzas and adds a chorus of its own, which puts the passage two removes from anything a congregation actually sings.

· Not a quote: The song never says it is quoting and cites no verse. So the word-for-word standard does not apply. Its documented link to 1 Chronicles 17:16-17 is that Newton printed the passage as the hymn's heading. He did not put its words into the hymn.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

The passage is not in the hymn. It is the question the hymn was written to answer.

Why it matters

Most proofs on this site test a song against a passage the song reached for. This one runs the other way. The passage reached first: Newton preached these two verses on New Year's Day 1773 and wrote the hymn to go with the sermon. That makes 1 Chronicles 17:16-17 the hymn's occasion, and an occasion is not a quotation. Knowing it does not make the hymn scripture, and the hymn is not weaker for that. What it gives you is something specific to hold the song against, which is worth more than a general sense that a song sounds biblical.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

The grammar is first person from the first line to the last, which is why the dwelling tag here is mixed rather than God. Count the subjects and the singer is everywhere: I was lost, I was blind, my fears, my chains, my shield and portion. Count the verbs and almost none of them belong to the singer. Grace teaches, grace relieves, God promises, God ransoms, God is still there after the earth is gone. That is the same shape as the prayer it came from, where David's opening words are a question about himself and every answer inside the sentence is about God. What repetition plants here is a habit of speaking about yourself in the passive voice, as someone things were done for rather than someone who did them, and that is a good habit to have drilled in. The one thing looping this song will not plant is the passage, because the song never says it. If you want David's question in your mouth as well as Newton's answer, put the two verses beside the song and read them yourself.

Helpful comparison

Newton's sermon notes for 1 January 1773 survive, and the Museum of the Bible's exhibit of them shows an outline in three movements: humility before God, a look back over past mercy at the words "that thou hast brought me hitherto," and confidence about what God has promised for the future. Set that beside the hymn's original title and the match is close enough to be checked. Faith's review is the second movement. Faith's expectation is the third. The first, the humility, is where the hymn opens, with a singer whose only qualification is that he was lost.

What an arrangement does to a structure like that is worth watching. Tomlin keeps stanzas one, two, four and six and drops the two in the middle, then repeats a new chorus between the survivors. The humility survives in the opening. The review survives in the stanza about grace teaching the heart to fear. The expectation survives in the stanza about God's promise and in the closing stanza about the earth dissolving, which is the piece most hymnals replace and this version restores. The chorus adds a fourth movement Newton did not write, and by placement it is the part sung most.

The ten-thousand-years stanza was joined to the hymn in Edwin Excell's *Coronation Hymns* of 1910, having first appeared anonymously in 1790. The general point stands even though this version omits it: a hymn can pick up authors quietly.

Sources

Chris Tomlin — Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone), official video · (the recording checked for this proof; oEmbed reports the channel as ChrisTomlinVEVO)
Hymnary.org — Amazing grace! how sweet the sound · (Newton; *Olney Hymns*, 1779; original title "Faith's Review and Expectation"; scripture reference 1 Chronicles 17:16-17; six original stanzas; the "ten thousand years" stanza identified as a wandering stanza printed anonymously in 1790 and joined to this text in Excell's *Coronation Hymns*, 1910)
Cowper & Newton Museum — Amazing Grace · (composition dated to the weeks before the New Year's Day service of 1 January 1773, preached on 1 Chronicles 17:16-17; the original title; the six-verse facsimile)
Museum of the Bible — John Newton's sermon notes for January 1, 1773 · (the surviving notes on 1 Chronicles 17:16-17 and their three-part outline)
Baptist Press — Tomlin contributes additional lyrics to Amazing Grace for movie · (Tomlin's own account of writing the chorus for the Wilberforce film, and of finding and restoring Newton's original closing stanza)
UMC Discipleship Ministries — History of Hymns: "Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone" · (the arrangement's form and refrain authorship, and its ending on Newton's original final stanza rather than Excell's addition)
PraiseCharts — Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) · (four verses plus one chorus, and which of Newton's stanzas they are)
Worship Together — Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) · (writers credited as Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio; CCLI 4768151)
Wikipedia — See the Morning · (album, released 26 September 2006 on sixsteps/Sparrow)

Corrections

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