Irony to the World

To date and to the best of my knowledge, the best Bahá’í music has come from non- Bahá’í sources. This must inevitably change, but it is the present state of affairs. I’ve often thought, for instance, that Joy to the World (the Christmas carol, not the Three Dog Night song) is as soul-stirring a Bahá’í song as it gets when you view the lyrics from a Bahá’í perspective.

It turns out I couldn’t be more wrong, though quite from the opposite direction. Joy to the World is a Bahá’í song, plain and simple, and not even a Christmas carol at all. It is the brainchild of Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the “father of English hymnody.” His own father was a Non-Conformist, so he came by creative thoughts honestly. Here’s the scoop on what actually happened and what the song actually is.

John Calvin had previously initiated the practice of creating verse translations of the Psalms for congregational singing, but Watts took this a step further by introducing Psalm-inspired lyrics for songs. He also thought the Psalms should be updated, because though King David (author of many of the Psalms) was divinely-inspired, his religious understanding could not possibly have fully apprehended the truths later revealed by Jesus Christ. Therefore the Psalms, in Watts’ thinking, should be “renovated” to imitate the language of the New Testament rather than the Biblical Hebrew.

Joy to the World is based on Psalm 98 which begins, in the King James version, “O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things,” and includes the famous line “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Lines such as “Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together” are easily seen to inspire this hymn. The music was then adapted and arranged by Lowell Mason from an older melody which was believed to have originated from Händel because of obvious similarites to snatches of phrases from The Messiah.

All fine and good, but here’s the clincher – are you ready for this? Even if today “Joy to the World” is commonly thought of as a Christmas song, its lyrics were originally written by Isaac Watts as a hymn glorifying Christ's triumphant return at the end of the age! Ha!

For those of us who have to pull out our carol sheets every Christmas, here follows the complete lyrics to Joy to the World. Bahá’ís are invited to sing this silently or out loud with Isaac Watts’ intention in mind.

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 world, the Saviour 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.

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.