O Come, O Come Emmanuel (stanzas 1-4)

For this Christmas season, I want to share some Christmas carols with you. Some have poignant stories about why they were written in the first place. Some are known for how they were used through the years. Some have stanzas that are rarely sung and barely known. And they all make some reference to scripture, which is the basis for the Christmas story. 

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is translated from a Latin chant, written around the 12th century. "Emmanuel" is a name for Christ, the Messiah. It means "God with us" or "God is with us." (Isaiah 7:14; 8:8) 

In ancient times, after years of rebelling against God, He allowed the Jews to be taken captive to the foreign empires of Assyria and Babylon. This had all been predicted centuries before. There were also the prophecies that Emmanuel would come and rescue His people. 

Though the people deported to Babylon were eventually released to return to their homeland, the prophecy of a Messiah had not yet been fulfilled. 

1 O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

This carol uses other names for Jesus Christ. One passage says that in God's incarnation (becoming a human, through Jesus), he became "wisdom from God." (1 Corinthians 1:29) I've never heard the second stanza sung, perhaps because the English translation is a bit stilted:

2 O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Two of the names for Jesus in this carol come from Isaiah 11:1...
"Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit." (New American Standard Bible)

Jesus human lineage came from King David, son of Jesse. It was prophesied that there would always be a descendant to take the throne back. So the next verse refers to the "Rod of Jesse," meaning a branch of the family tree.

But Jesus came to do more than free the Israelites from political captivity. He came to free all His children--Jew and non-Jew--from sin and its consequences of death and hell.

3 O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

In the Christmas story, the priest Zacharias (father to Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist) announced that the Messiah's arrival was near. He said,
"Through the tender mercy of our God...the dayspring from on high hath visited us,"
Luke 1:78 (King James Version, 1900)

"Dayspring" is just the King James word for "dawn"

Those who have lived through a long, long, night are anxious for the dawn to break through the darkness.

4 O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

 

Sources for the carol:
 https://hymnary.org/text/o_come_o_come_emmanuel_and_ransom
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/c/o/m/ocomocom.htm