Isaiah 7:14 vs. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Why it matters

This is probably the most scripture-saturated song a congregation sings all December, and it quotes none of it. Every line is an address rather than a statement, so there is no sentence in the song to check for accuracy. What there is instead is a list of places to go.

That makes it a good song and a poor substitute for reading, and the two facts sit together. Singing the name five times will not tell you that Isaiah 7:14 was a sign forced on a king who would not ask for one, or that the verses around it set a deadline and then name Assyria. Sovereign Grace publish nine passages behind the song on their own page. The song itself hands you none of them.

Helpful comparison

The hymn is a metrical arrangement of the Great "O" Antiphons, seven short liturgical texts sung on the seven evenings before Christmas Eve, each one addressing Christ by a different Old Testament title: Sapientia (Wisdom), Adonai, Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse), Clavis David (Key of David), Oriens (Dayspring), Rex Gentium (King of Nations), and Emmanuel. Isaiah 7:14 stands behind the last of them. The initials of the seven titles, read backwards, spell *ero cras*, "I will be tomorrow," and the series was designed so that the seventh was sung on 23 December.

Three things happened to that design before it reached a hymnal. The rhyming Latin version printed in the 1690s and 1710s kept only five of the seven, dropping Sapientia and Rex Gentium. It reversed the order so that Emmanuel, the last antiphon, became the first stanza, which leaves the acrostic unreadable. And it added the rejoicing refrain, which is not part of the liturgy at all. J.M. Neale translated those five stanzas into English in 1851, opening with a different imperative than the one congregations sing now, and later editors both revised his opening and restored the two missing stanzas.

So this recording sings two of Neale's stanzas and three written by Steve Cook and Bob Kauflin in 2014, and Sovereign Grace say exactly that in the credits on their own song page. It is worth knowing, because nothing in the sound of the three new stanzas marks them as new. They are built by the same method: a title, then a petition.

Sources

• Sovereign Grace Music — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (song page) · (rights holder's own page: verses 1-2 translated by John M. Neale 1851, verses 3-5 by Steve Cook and Bob Kauflin, tune VENI EMMANUEL, © 2014, CCLI 7031873, and the nine scripture references the publisher lists, beginning with Isaiah 7:14)
• Sovereign Grace Music — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Bandcamp track) · (independent confirmation of the same credits and copyright line; album *Prepare Him Room*, 2014)
• Sovereign Grace Music — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, official lyric video · (the recording checked for this proof, SovereignGraceMusic channel)
• Hymnology Archive — O come, O come, Emmanuel · (the seven O Antiphons and the passage behind each, Isaiah 7:14 behind Emmanuel; the *ero cras* acrostic; the rhyming Latin printings of 1693 and 1710, which dropped Sapientia and Rex Gentium, reversed the order to begin with Emmanuel, and added the refrain; Neale's 1851 five stanzas and his different opening line; Mohr's 1878 restoration of the two missing stanzas)
• Hymnary.org — O come, O come, Emmanuel · (text authority page: composite translation with Neale 1851, Latin antiphons behind it, tune VENI EMMANUEL from a 15th-century French Franciscan processional adapted by Thomas Helmore in *The Hymnal Noted*, 1854, and a scripture index for the text that includes Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 11:1)