“It’s always winter, but never Christmas.
It seems this curse just can’t be
lifted,
Yet, in the midst of all this ice and
snow,
Our hearts stay warm ’cause they are
filled with hope.”
Relient K, ‘In
Like a Lion (Always Winter)’, Let it Snow Baby … Let it Reindeer (2007)
Odd, isn’t it – I feel as if I spent
the better part of this term just gone restraining myself from being excited
about Christmas, because it was always too early. Now Christmas is almost upon
us, and I don’t feel as if I’ll have spent enough time being excited before it’s
too late. I haven’t even sung ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ at any church services
yet, which is a real shame, because it’s a beautiful hymn1 –
although the theological language is rather dense and difficult, which is why I
thought it might be worthwhile this week to have a go at dissecting the lyrics to
some extent, specifically focussing on the titles given to Jesus, to whom the
song is addressed.2
I forget the exact occasion upon which
I was first told that the season of Advent, as it exists in the Church of
England’s calendar, is designed not just as a period of preparation before
Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ first coming, but also as a time to focus
on his future second coming. Still, the notion had a significant impact on me,
and I think the brilliance of ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ is that it works on
both levels: it expresses both the former yearning of God’s people for the
initial coming of God’s Chosen One, at which point a rescue from the captivity
of our own selfish, rebellious natures was put in place for all who will believe
in Jesus; and our current yearning for his return, at which point that rescue
will be brought to fulfilment by the final destruction of all wrongdoing and
rebellion against God.
 |
| Advent wreaths as I know them have four red candles to represent the Patriarchs, Prophets, John the Baptist, and Mary, and a white one in the middle for Christ. However, a small amount of research has enlightened me that there are all sorts of advent-wreath traditions, some of which include purple candles and/or four-candle wreaths, so I must really refrain from criticism of content in thanking Gualberto107 at freedigitalphotos.net for the image above. |
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
We start with a fairly straightforward stanza, though it’s worth drawing some attention to the term ‘Emmanuel’. The Hebrew term is עִמָּנוּ אֵל (Immānū El), meaning ‘God with us’, which pops up significantly in the book of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” A famous verse, though it comes in a far less familiar context, namely that the kings of Syria and of Israel (that is, the bigger, northern section of Israel, after it split into two kingdoms) have come to wage war on Judah (that is, the smaller, southern section of Israel – yes, I know it’s confusing!) and, although they haven’t been able to actually attack yet, King Ahaz of Judah is shaking in his shoes. So Isaiah, acting as God’s mouthpiece, goes to meet Ahaz and tells him not to be afraid of the attackers, who will not succeed. Ahaz is then told to ask for a sign from God, but he refuses, so God proposes his own sign.3
And then. And then we get a description of the destruction that God would bring on his people through the king of Assyria. Now, it’s not unwarranted destruction: the books of Kings and Chronicles are very clear that Ahaz was Very, Very Bad, even to the extent of burning his own son as a sacrifice to foreign deities. Moreover, it was Ahaz himself who got in touch with the king of Assyria, declared himself subject to him, and gave him treasures from the Temple as a bribe to become his ally.4 Still, it seems a little jarring; if the Immanuel promise is associated with punishment and destruction, why does ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ use the term to beg for rescue? Key here is the fact that God’s rescue and God’s judgement are completely tied up together. You can’t have one without the other.5 This verse of the song is a plea for rescue by means of punishment: captivity necessarily implies a captor who must be removed for the captivity to be ended.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny.
From depths of hell thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave.
All right, what exactly is this Rod of Jesse business? The original Latin version of the hymn is useful here; the word translated as ‘rod’ is ‘uirgula’, a diminutive form of ‘uirga’, which, while it can refer to a rod, stick, or wand, is more strictly used of a twig or shoot of a plant. 6 Once we know this, the reference being made, again to Isaiah, becomes more obvious: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit,” reads Isaiah 11:1. Jesse was the father of King David, so what’s being talked about here is someone who will be born into that family. What sort of someone? A pretty amazing one, by the sound of it: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him … his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord … with righteousness he shall judge the poor … with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”7 Again we see rescue and punishment tied up together; Satan, hell, and the grave are the enemies who will be punished, thereby rescuing God’s people from their power.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
We start with a fairly straightforward stanza, though it’s worth drawing some attention to the term ‘Emmanuel’. The Hebrew term is עִמָּנוּ אֵל (Immānū El), meaning ‘God with us’, which pops up significantly in the book of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” A famous verse, though it comes in a far less familiar context, namely that the kings of Syria and of Israel (that is, the bigger, northern section of Israel, after it split into two kingdoms) have come to wage war on Judah (that is, the smaller, southern section of Israel – yes, I know it’s confusing!) and, although they haven’t been able to actually attack yet, King Ahaz of Judah is shaking in his shoes. So Isaiah, acting as God’s mouthpiece, goes to meet Ahaz and tells him not to be afraid of the attackers, who will not succeed. Ahaz is then told to ask for a sign from God, but he refuses, so God proposes his own sign.3
And then. And then we get a description of the destruction that God would bring on his people through the king of Assyria. Now, it’s not unwarranted destruction: the books of Kings and Chronicles are very clear that Ahaz was Very, Very Bad, even to the extent of burning his own son as a sacrifice to foreign deities. Moreover, it was Ahaz himself who got in touch with the king of Assyria, declared himself subject to him, and gave him treasures from the Temple as a bribe to become his ally.4 Still, it seems a little jarring; if the Immanuel promise is associated with punishment and destruction, why does ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ use the term to beg for rescue? Key here is the fact that God’s rescue and God’s judgement are completely tied up together. You can’t have one without the other.5 This verse of the song is a plea for rescue by means of punishment: captivity necessarily implies a captor who must be removed for the captivity to be ended.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny.
From depths of hell thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave.
All right, what exactly is this Rod of Jesse business? The original Latin version of the hymn is useful here; the word translated as ‘rod’ is ‘uirgula’, a diminutive form of ‘uirga’, which, while it can refer to a rod, stick, or wand, is more strictly used of a twig or shoot of a plant. 6 Once we know this, the reference being made, again to Isaiah, becomes more obvious: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit,” reads Isaiah 11:1. Jesse was the father of King David, so what’s being talked about here is someone who will be born into that family. What sort of someone? A pretty amazing one, by the sound of it: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him … his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord … with righteousness he shall judge the poor … with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”7 Again we see rescue and punishment tied up together; Satan, hell, and the grave are the enemies who will be punished, thereby rescuing God’s people from their power.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
 |
| Dayspring in Vietnam, apparently. Nice work, God. |
‘Dayspring’? Apparently, it was a perfectly good word for ‘dawn’ or ‘daybreak’
when the King James Version of the Bible was published.8 It’s used
in Luke 1:77: “…the dayspring from on high hath visited us.” This is part of
the song sung by Zechariah, John the Baptist’s dad, once he recovered his
powers of speech; he had been struck dumb as a result of his scepticism about a
message from God predicting John’s birth (Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were
both pretty old and they had no other children). It’s a beautiful song all
about salvation and there’s plenty of interesting stuff to be done with it, but
I’ll just pick out, on the dayspring front, what I think is a distinct echo of
Isaiah 9. “…the sunrise (dayspring) shall visit us from on high to give light
to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,” says the passage in Luke.9
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in
a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined,” says Isaiah 9:2.10
‘Advent’ in the stanza above just means ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’ (from Latin ‘ad-uenio’,
meaning ‘come to’), so the gist is that Jesus’ arrival represents darkness-dispelling
light; and this idea is tied up, in Luke, with salvation and forgiveness and
mercy, and in Isaiah, with rejoicing and prosperity and peace.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery.
The idea of the key of David is mentioned twice in the Bible. First, in Isaiah, God declares that he will replace Shebna, the current guy-in-charge-of-the-royal-household, with someone else called Eliakim son of Hilkiah, “and I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; he shall shut, and none shall open.”11 So, in short, the idea is of someone appointed by God to a role of authority in the household of his chosen king, someone whose actions (specifically opening and shutting) consequently cannot be undone by anyone else. Jesus then picks up on this idea in his address to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation: “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.”12 Jesus casts himself in the same role, one appointed by God to a role of authority in the household of his chosen king – of course, Jesus himself is the chosen king as well, but then he’s awfully good at multi-roling. (Not quite so good at multi-roling as to actually be, rather than hold, the key of David, as the song seems to imply, but we’ll call that metonymy, or something of that ilk, and move on.) What Jesus opens none can shut, and he has opened the way to salvation; what he shuts none can open, and he has shut off the power of death and wrongdoing. He can do this because he is divinely appointed to the role; that’s the source of his authority.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who, to thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the Law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
The reference in this last verse is perhaps the most obvious. Exodus 19 describes how God appeared on Mount Sinai in a thick and awe-inspiring cloud, and the following chapters detail the laws which he subsequently gave his people.13 I think the main point of this verse as part of the whole song is as a reminder that the New Testament Jesus isn’t some completely different person to the God who gave the Law to Israel at its very origin as a nation; they are one and the same God. Noteworthy also is the context in which the Law was given, immediately following the rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt. A precedent is asserted here: God has rescued his people before and will do so again.
Honestly, I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the interpretation of each of the titles above, and I really hope that you, O Lovely Reader, might feel prompted to do a bit more reading for yourself, and see what further links and themes and ideas God helps you discern. And finally, if you find waiting for Christmas as tricky as I do, try waiting for Jesus’ second coming instead. It’s never too early to start actively anticipating the second coming, and some day soon it’s going to be too late – so get excited now, and stay excited! Jesus, unlike Christmas, is everything he’s cracked up to be and more – just check out the passages mentioned above – and his reign, rather than petering out into an uninspiring Boxing Day and a dark and dismal January, will last forever.
Footnotes
1 My absolute favourite versions that I’ve so far come across are those by The Piano Guys, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc, and David Wesley, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7VrD9L7Ng.
2 I reckon the version of the lyrics I’ve used is the best known; for reference, it’s number 493 in the Complete Mission Praise, though for some reason they’ve moved the fifth verse into second place. There are other translations about, and additional verses; the Oremus hymnal lists a few: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/o/o084.html.
3 Check out the story for yourself: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%207&version=ESVUK. The term ‘Immanuel’ also pops up a couple of times in the next chapter, so that’s worth a look too.
4 See 2 Kings 16 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings+16&version=ESVUK – and 2 Chronicles 28 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Chronicles+28&version=ESVUK. Aren’t I nice to tell you these things?
5 This is apparent through so much of the Bible that I hardly know where to point you. Still, off the top of my head (not meaning, just to be clear, that I can pluck the exact references from some kind of labyrinthine Biblical memory, but rather that I remember the rough concepts and have tracked down the specific passages through a combination of flicking through my paper Bible and sticking relevant terms into the Bible Gateway search engine), try Exodus 7:14-15:21; Ezekiel 34; and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Here’s the absolutely gorgeous Ezekiel chapter to get you started: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+34&version=ESVUK.
6 The Hymns and Carols of Christmas website offers an image of the Latin text as in a hymnal called Cantiones Sacrae (‘Holy Songs’) published in 1878, which, you will notice, lists the verses in the order I have used above: http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/NonEnglish/veni_veni_emanuel.htm. I’m really not sure why Mission Praise felt the alternative order necessary, but safe to say this is one of those hymns that’s been around for such a long time that there’s no real consensus on its precise canonical form. If you’re wondering why I wrote ‘uirgula’ rather than ‘virgula’, it’s worth knowing that our modern ‘u’ and ‘v’ come from the same original Latin character, and the distinction of ‘u’ as a vowel and ‘v’ as a consonant was only made later. Essentially, I’m being an intellectual snob; even Lewis and Short concede to begin the word with a ‘v’: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=virgula&la=la.
7 Whole chapter, anyone? That ellipsis isn’t just for effect; I did, in my quotation, miss bits out that are worth reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+11&version=ESVUK.
8 According to dictionary.com, the word developed at some point during the latter half of the thirteenth century, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dayspring?s=t; the KJV hit the shelves in 1611.
9 Have the whole chapter – from the English Standard Version, though, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1&version=ESVUK. The KJV is a beautifully accurate translation, but all those ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s and ‘hath’s and ‘dost’s can prove muddling to the modern mind, not to mention cause you to spit all over the pages if you happen to want to read the text aloud.
10 Whole chapter, voilà: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%209&version=ESVUK. Equally, if you still have Chapter 7 open from earlier, you could just click forwards a couple of pages.
11 Still checking the footnotes for links to the whole chapter? Your dedication impresses me. Of course, it’s all well worth reading – infinitely more so than my ramblings! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+22&version=ESVUK.
12 You know the drill: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+3&version=ESVUK.
13 Last one, I promise: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus+19&version=ESVUK.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery.
The idea of the key of David is mentioned twice in the Bible. First, in Isaiah, God declares that he will replace Shebna, the current guy-in-charge-of-the-royal-household, with someone else called Eliakim son of Hilkiah, “and I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; he shall shut, and none shall open.”11 So, in short, the idea is of someone appointed by God to a role of authority in the household of his chosen king, someone whose actions (specifically opening and shutting) consequently cannot be undone by anyone else. Jesus then picks up on this idea in his address to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation: “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.”12 Jesus casts himself in the same role, one appointed by God to a role of authority in the household of his chosen king – of course, Jesus himself is the chosen king as well, but then he’s awfully good at multi-roling. (Not quite so good at multi-roling as to actually be, rather than hold, the key of David, as the song seems to imply, but we’ll call that metonymy, or something of that ilk, and move on.) What Jesus opens none can shut, and he has opened the way to salvation; what he shuts none can open, and he has shut off the power of death and wrongdoing. He can do this because he is divinely appointed to the role; that’s the source of his authority.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who, to thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the Law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
The reference in this last verse is perhaps the most obvious. Exodus 19 describes how God appeared on Mount Sinai in a thick and awe-inspiring cloud, and the following chapters detail the laws which he subsequently gave his people.13 I think the main point of this verse as part of the whole song is as a reminder that the New Testament Jesus isn’t some completely different person to the God who gave the Law to Israel at its very origin as a nation; they are one and the same God. Noteworthy also is the context in which the Law was given, immediately following the rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt. A precedent is asserted here: God has rescued his people before and will do so again.
Honestly, I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the interpretation of each of the titles above, and I really hope that you, O Lovely Reader, might feel prompted to do a bit more reading for yourself, and see what further links and themes and ideas God helps you discern. And finally, if you find waiting for Christmas as tricky as I do, try waiting for Jesus’ second coming instead. It’s never too early to start actively anticipating the second coming, and some day soon it’s going to be too late – so get excited now, and stay excited! Jesus, unlike Christmas, is everything he’s cracked up to be and more – just check out the passages mentioned above – and his reign, rather than petering out into an uninspiring Boxing Day and a dark and dismal January, will last forever.
Footnotes
1 My absolute favourite versions that I’ve so far come across are those by The Piano Guys, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc, and David Wesley, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT7VrD9L7Ng.
2 I reckon the version of the lyrics I’ve used is the best known; for reference, it’s number 493 in the Complete Mission Praise, though for some reason they’ve moved the fifth verse into second place. There are other translations about, and additional verses; the Oremus hymnal lists a few: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/o/o084.html.
3 Check out the story for yourself: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%207&version=ESVUK. The term ‘Immanuel’ also pops up a couple of times in the next chapter, so that’s worth a look too.
4 See 2 Kings 16 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings+16&version=ESVUK – and 2 Chronicles 28 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Chronicles+28&version=ESVUK. Aren’t I nice to tell you these things?
5 This is apparent through so much of the Bible that I hardly know where to point you. Still, off the top of my head (not meaning, just to be clear, that I can pluck the exact references from some kind of labyrinthine Biblical memory, but rather that I remember the rough concepts and have tracked down the specific passages through a combination of flicking through my paper Bible and sticking relevant terms into the Bible Gateway search engine), try Exodus 7:14-15:21; Ezekiel 34; and Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Here’s the absolutely gorgeous Ezekiel chapter to get you started: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+34&version=ESVUK.
6 The Hymns and Carols of Christmas website offers an image of the Latin text as in a hymnal called Cantiones Sacrae (‘Holy Songs’) published in 1878, which, you will notice, lists the verses in the order I have used above: http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/NonEnglish/veni_veni_emanuel.htm. I’m really not sure why Mission Praise felt the alternative order necessary, but safe to say this is one of those hymns that’s been around for such a long time that there’s no real consensus on its precise canonical form. If you’re wondering why I wrote ‘uirgula’ rather than ‘virgula’, it’s worth knowing that our modern ‘u’ and ‘v’ come from the same original Latin character, and the distinction of ‘u’ as a vowel and ‘v’ as a consonant was only made later. Essentially, I’m being an intellectual snob; even Lewis and Short concede to begin the word with a ‘v’: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=virgula&la=la.
7 Whole chapter, anyone? That ellipsis isn’t just for effect; I did, in my quotation, miss bits out that are worth reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+11&version=ESVUK.
8 According to dictionary.com, the word developed at some point during the latter half of the thirteenth century, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dayspring?s=t; the KJV hit the shelves in 1611.
9 Have the whole chapter – from the English Standard Version, though, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1&version=ESVUK. The KJV is a beautifully accurate translation, but all those ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s and ‘hath’s and ‘dost’s can prove muddling to the modern mind, not to mention cause you to spit all over the pages if you happen to want to read the text aloud.
10 Whole chapter, voilà: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%209&version=ESVUK. Equally, if you still have Chapter 7 open from earlier, you could just click forwards a couple of pages.
11 Still checking the footnotes for links to the whole chapter? Your dedication impresses me. Of course, it’s all well worth reading – infinitely more so than my ramblings! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+22&version=ESVUK.
12 You know the drill: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation+3&version=ESVUK.
13 Last one, I promise: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus+19&version=ESVUK.
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