. . . and ransom captive Israel.” I’ve wondered recently why we would sing this song in our churches during the four-week long Advent season. For Christians, the Messiah has come, historically some 2,000 years ago, and on a personal level, when one embraces Jesus as their own Lord and Savior. There remains then no longing or anticipation of a deliverer. Emmanuel, literally Hebrew for “God with us” is with us.

The hymn has its origins over 1,200 years ago in monastic life in the 8th or 9th century, sung as a liturgical antiphon. The words and music developed separately. The Latin text was first recorded in Germany in 1710, whereas the tune most familiar in the English-speaking world has its origins in 15th-Century France. A certain John Mason Neale published the five-verse Latin version in his 1851 collection Hymni Ecclesiae (Church Hymns). In the same year, Neale published the first documented English translation, beginning with “Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel.”

Perhaps we should sing more so on Israel’s behalf, to “ransom captive Israel / That mourns in lonely exile here / Until the Son of God appear,” in spite of the fact that to His own He has appeared, but to rejection and blinded eyes (read Roman 11:7-10). We certainly do not refer to the civil state of Israel, formed in 1948, but regarding the ethnic Jewish people, already rescued once before from captivity in Egypt long before Christ.

Maybe the tune would make far more sense if we included the fifth verse, rarely if ever heard, the lyrics being:

O Come, Thou King of nations bring
An end to all our suffering
Bid every pain and sorrow cease
And reign now as our Prince of Peace
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come again with us to dwell.

This then becomes the hope of every Christian alive today who longs for the Second Coming of the King of kings and Lord of lords. He will then also on that day reveal Himself to His people Israel, as declared by the prophet Zachariah (see Zach. 12-14), a thought reiterated by Paul in Romans 11:26: “And . . .  all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.’” (Paul quoting Isaiah 59:20)

Whew! It seems that I have answered my own question. I love when that happens!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS, no matter what Christmas carol you might sing!