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Let me start out with the correct way to punctuate the title; it should be “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” So the title actually comprises two sentences. “Hark!” is a one-sentence command meaning “Listen!” or “Pay attention!” (The same thing is going on grammatically in “Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal,” which is also not typically punctuated properly.) And to whom should we pay attention? Why, the “herald angels,” of course. (Let’s spare everyone the joke about the angel’s name being “Harold,” okay?) A ”herald” is a messenger who sometimes blows a trumpet to get everyone’s attention before an announcement. The angels in the Christmas story don’t blow trumpets; they don’t even sing. They simply proclaim. So the illustration that I chose for this post is not correct biblically, but it does agree with the carol. The original author of this carol’s lyrics was Charles Wesley, whose brother John founded the Methodist church. Charles was a prolific hymnwriter during the 1700’s, producing around 6,500 of them. Since he was actively involved in the formation of Methodism, it isn’t surprising that his hymns are rich with theology. I’ll try to hit the highlights of these ideas contained in the carol.
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Let’s start with what the messenger angels say: “Glory to the newborn King!” They are ascribing honor and majesty to the Christ child. They’re also announcing:
Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
One might ask why the mercy is “mild.” That adjective implies a sort of blandness, doesn’t it? As with many modern terms, the original meaning has been watered down and made almost into a negative. If you say that someone is “mild-mannered” nowadays, you’re usually implying that the person is a nonentity. The word should really be taken to mean something much more deliberate, though: that God has chosen to show gracious mercy on man and therefore to be “mild” in his actions. The verse goes on to say, “Joyful, all ye nations, rise. Join the triumph of the skies.” Note that I’ve added some extra commas and periods to make things a little clearer. A rephrasing would therefore be: “All of the joyful nations should rise and join in with the triumphal chorus of the angels in the skies.”
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The second verse has a bit more biblical doctrine in it, but don’t let that scare you off. The relevant lines are:
Late in time behold Him come Offspring of a Virgin’s womb: Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity.
What does it mean that Christ came “late in time”? It never occurred to me to question that phrase before writing this article. After a little poking around I’ve found several references to the first chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews: “God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” In other words, “late” doesn’t “tardy,” but instead “recently,” or “lately,” or “after much time has passed.” May I quote one more New Testament verse, this one from the Epistle to the Galatians? “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his son.” The carol’s stanza ends with two phrases that mean the same thing: “veiled in flesh the Godhead see” and “hail the incarnate deity.” Both refer to the idea that Christ was both God and man. “Immanuel” at the end of the verse means “God with us.”
The third verse includes striking imagery from the Hebrew Bible: “Prince of peace” from the book of Isaiah and “Sun of righteousness . . . Risen with healing in his wings” from the book of Malachi. That second reference deserves a bit of explanation, as the “Sun/Son” pairing occurs a number of times in both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. (I have no idea whether or not the two words are homonyms in ancient Hebrew or Greek.) My vague assumption about the “healing in his wings” imagery has always been of some type of great bird spreading its wings and therefore doing . . . what? How would the wings bring healing? But the word should actually be “rays.” That makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? The “sun” has risen, and its rays of light bring healing. A modern translation reads this way: “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.” (Mal. 6:4 NIV) Note that “mild” shows up again in “mild he lays his glory by,” a reference to the idea that Christ willingly laid aside his glory to come to earth as an infant. (I’ve ranted and raved at some length in an earlier post about this whole “gentle Jesus meek and mild” idea, a line that’s actually from Wesley!)
I can’t resist at least a little commentary on the fourth verse, even though it’s not often sung:
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Come, Desire of Nations, come, Fix in us thy humble home; Rise the Woman’s conqu’ring Seed, Bruise in us the serpent’s head. Adam’s Likeness now efface, Stamp thine Image in its Place; Second Adam from above, Reinstate us by thy Love.
What’s all this about the “serpent’s head”? For the answer you have to go all the way back to the book of Genesis, the first book in the Hebrew Bible. After Adam and Eve have sinned and been cast out of the garden, God says to the serpent who has tempted them: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This verse is typically seen as the promise of a coming Messiah or Savior. And the Christian New Testament refers in several places to the idea of Christ’s being a “second Adam.”
The traditional tune used for the carol is by Felix Mendelssohn and was adapted in 1855 from a secular cantata he’d written. Other tunes have been used, but none has been as enduring as Mendelssohn’s. My own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, is singing an arrangement by the contemporary composer/arranger Dan Forrest. There’s a lot going on in his version! Take a look and listen:
And of course we have to hear from the King’s College Choir:
Note: All Scriptures unless otherwise noted at from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain.
© Debi Simons
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