JOY TO THE WORLD

Christmas was not celebrated as it is today by seventeenth and eighteenth-century colonists.  See my post last year about Advent http://colonialquills.blogspot.com/search/label/Advent

Christmas was primarily a religious period lasting from Advent through Epiphany, without many other festivities. Hymns were sung in some churches, and a fair number of them were being written by the young literary genius, Isaac Watts. Watts, born in Southampton, England in 1674, was the son of a committed religious Nonconformist who had been jailed for his questionable philosophy.

Isaac Watts

By the age of thirteen, Isaac had learned Latin, Greek French and Hebrew, and later studied philosophy and theology. While still a teenager, Watts became critical of the way Psalms were sung in church so his father challenged him to improve the quality of church music by creating his own.

The following Sunday Isaac wrote his first hymn and it was accepted at church with great enthusiasm. He continued to produce a hymn each week for the next two years, and in 1707 he published Hymns and Spiritual Songs. That book and the hymnal he wrote in 1719 were considered the first real hymnals in the English language. With his 600 hymns he became known as the “Father of English Hymnody”.

George Frederick Handel

George Frederick Handel, a friend of Watts, is credited as being the music composer of “Joy To The World”. Handel is best known as the composer of “The Messiah”, which he wrote in just 25 days. These two gifted musical talents were very different in looks and personality. Watts was a plain, diminutive, mild mannered Englishman, while Handel was a vigorous, hot-tempered German. 

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”                                       Luke 2:10 KJV

"Joy to the World," is often sung at Christmas celebrating Jesus Christ’s first coming, but in actuality it is a hymn that also anticipates, with great joy, Christ's triumphant return at the end of the age. This cherished Christmas carol is probably the most famous of Isaac Watts’ hymns.

The hymn is based upon the last part of Psalm 98.

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.

With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King.

Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together

Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”

                                Psalm 98: 4-9 KJV

JOY TO THE WORLD

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders, of His love.

To listen to the music:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/j/o/joyworld.htm

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Janet Grunst

http://JanetGrunst.com
http://colonialquills.blogspot.com/
Represented By Linda S. Glaz
Hartline Literary Agency