As it is approaching Christmas we are now looking at the top ten Christmas Carols. At number 7 is Joy to the World, this wasn’t selected during lockdown for the St Fillan’s online Songs of Praise.
This carol was written in 1719 by the “Father of the English Hymn,” Isaac Watts. He translated, interpreted, and paraphrased the second half of Psalm 98, overlaying it with the truths of the Gospel. His hymn Joy to the World wasn’t originally a Christmas hymn, but history has embedded it into our Christmas traditions. It has a rousing melody that echoes the music of Georg Friedrich Handel. In the late 1990s, it was named the most-published Christmas hymn in North America. You can just feel the merriness pouring out of it.
Psalm 98:4-9
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.