Zechariah 13:1 vs. “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood”

William Cowper (recorded live by Sovereign Grace Music) · checked 2026-08-22

What we checked

PassageZechariah 13:1 chapter ↗

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asinspired-by

Categorynot a quote

Album1772

Words addressed toJesus

Teaching or experiencemixed

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria not graded: this song never presents its words as scripture

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Never says it is quoting. The sung text quotes nothing, and the Olney Hymns heading cites the verse as a source rather than presenting the lines as scripture
Keeps the verse's two plainest terms, a fountain and cleansing from sin, and builds the whole hymn on them rather than on a stray phrase
The reading it takes is old and documented, not invented. Zechariah 12:10 puts the same named people in front of the pierced one, and a commentary that keeps the audience national still reads the fountain as Christ's blood
Turns to address the Lamb directly and says the sacrifice holds until the whole church is saved, which is a statement about God's work and not about the singer's
Has been printed in roughly 2,800 hymnals with the opening image intact, so what a congregation sings is close to what Cowper published

⚠ Cautions

The verse opens the fountain to the house of David and the people of Jerusalem on a named day. The hymn opens it to sinners generally. The widening may well be right, but nothing in this verse carries it, and the hymn does not say where the reason comes from
Zechariah says nothing about what fills the fountain. The hymn answers that question from elsewhere and presents the answer as the picture itself
This text has been edited more than most. Montgomery replaced the opening stanza in 1819 and Micklem revised it again in the twentieth century for two 1980s hymnals. Check which version your book prints before assuming a congregation is singing one text
Seven stanzas at first publication and five in most hymnals since, so the version sung is already a selection someone else made

Verse Proof

Zechariah 13:1

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the people of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”

Zechariah prophesied in Jerusalem after the return from exile, and chapters 12 to 14 are a run of oracles about a coming day for Judah and its capital. Chapter 12 has the nations gathered against the city and God defending it, and it closes with the same two parties named again in 13:1, the house of David and the people of Jerusalem, looking on the one they have pierced and mourning for him. Verse 1 is the next sentence, and it belongs to that scene. A fountain is opened for that named people, on that named day, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. The verse says who the fountain is for and what it is for. It does not say what is in it.

What the song says, described not quoted

The hymn opens with a fountain and names its contents in the same breath: the blood of the Redeemer. The early stanzas describe what that fountain does for those washed in it and take the thief crucified beside Jesus as the test case, the least likely candidate who was accepted anyway, with the singer asking to be received on the same terms. A middle stanza turns from description to direct address and tells the Lamb that the sacrifice holds until the whole church is saved. The last two stanzas belong to the singer, who says redeeming love has been his subject since he first believed and expects to sing it better after death than he can now. No verse is quoted and no reference is given in the sung text. The text was first published in seven four-line stanzas. Most hymnals since, and the recording checked here, carry five.

Zechariah's sentence supplies four things: a fountain, a day, a named people, and a purpose. The hymn keeps the fountain and the purpose and replaces the other two. The day becomes the cross. The house of David and the people of Jerusalem become sinners in general, and the singer in particular. The hymn also fills the fountain. Zechariah says one is opened and says nothing whatever about its contents, and the hymn's answer is drawn from New Testament texts about the blood of Christ rather than from this verse. Beyond the fountain itself and the cleansing from sin, no wording crosses over. The Olney Hymns printing carries the chapter and verse as a heading, which states a source rather than saying the lines are scripture.

· Not a quote: The hymn cites Zechariah 13:1 as its source and quotes none of it. It fills the verse's unfilled fountain with the blood of Christ. It widens the verse's named audience of the house of David and Jerusalem to sinners generally.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

Zechariah names who the fountain is for and never says what is in it. The hymn answers both questions, and only one of the answers is his.

Why it matters

Zechariah 13:1 is short enough to sing whole and specific enough to be checked, and this hymn is the most sung reading of it in English. The reading has real support. The sentence immediately before it has the same two named parties looking on the one they pierced, and commentators who hold the fountain's audience to Israel still identify the fountain itself with the blood of Christ. What a singer will not get from the hymn is that any of this is a reading. The verse names a day, a house and a city, and the hymn names none of the three.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

Three of the five stanzas put the singer in the frame, which is why the dwelling tag is mixed rather than God, but in each of those three the thing being described is still God's work rather than the singer's. What a loop of this hymn plants is a picture of cleansing that is costly, sufficient, and not earned, with the thief on the cross standing as proof that the terms are not raised for anyone. Sung often, it makes washed a word you reach for before you reach for improved. The one thing repetition here will not plant is Zechariah's own sentence, since none of it is in the hymn. Read the chapter beside it and you get the part the hymn leaves out, which is a date and an address. The hymn's confidence is easier to hold once you have seen where it started.

Helpful comparison

Two things about this hymn's history get told badly, and both are worth getting right.

The first is the man. Cowper suffered severe depression from 1763 on and, by the United Methodist history of hymns, attempted his own life three times. He wrote this text around 1771, in one of the clearer stretches after his first breakdown, and it was published unattributed in Conyers's collection in 1772 and again in Olney Hymns in 1779 with his mark on it. Those are the documented facts and they stop there. What his illness explains about any line of the hymn is not documented, and this site will not guess at it. The words are graded on what they say.

The second is the editing. The opening image has drawn more revision than almost any line in the standard English repertoire. James Montgomery replaced the first stanza in 1819, objecting that a fountain should spring up rather than be filled, and his version did not take hold. Nathaniel Micklem's later revision moved the wording nearer to Zechariah's own language of cleansing for sin, and Erik Routley carried it into two hymnals in the 1980s. Neither displaced the original. James Moffatt's verdict on the attempts was flat: "The hymn must be taken as Cowper wrote it, or not at all." Whether the image should be sung is a taste question and not one this site answers. Whether it is Zechariah's image is the question it does answer, and the answer is that the fountain is his and the filling is not.

Sources

Sovereign Grace Music, There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood (song page) · (the rights holder's own page for the recording checked here: words credited to William Cowper, 1771, music a nineteenth-century camp meeting tune, copyright line "Public Domain (adm. by Integrity Music)", vocal by Bob Kauflin, five verses listed, and a scripture-references section left empty)
Sovereign Grace Music, There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood (Bandcamp) · (second rights-holder source for the same credit line; album Together for the Gospel Live, released 1 December 2008)
There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood (Live), Sovereign Grace Music · (the recording checked for this proof; oEmbed returns author_name "Sovereign Grace Music - Topic" and the listing carries the label-delivery line "Provided to YouTube by Absolute Label Services", ℗ 2008 Sovereign Grace Music, released 2008-01-01)
Hymnology Archive, There is a fountain filled with blood · (first publication in Richard Conyers's Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1772, in seven four-line stanzas, unattributed; the 1779 Olney Hymns heading "Praise for the fountain opened. Chap. xiii. 1" with Cowper's mark; Rippon's 1787 changes; Montgomery's 1819 rewrite of the opening stanza and his stated objection; Micklem's revision and Routley's use of it in Rejoice in the Lord, 1985, and Lutheran Worship, 1982; Moffatt's verdict; the tune history from TUNBRIDGE through Mason to CLEANSING FOUNTAIN, 1865)
Hymnary.org, Praise for the Fountain opened (text authority) · (Cowper as author; text likely originated 1771 and appeared in Conyers's 1772 collection in seven stanzas; roughly 2,800 hymnals; five stanzas printed; Montgomery's alterations for Cotterill 1819 and Bickersteth 1833; Zechariah 13:1 heading the scripture-reference list alongside Psalms, Isaiah, the Gospels, Romans, Ephesians, Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation)
UMC Discipleship Ministries, History of Hymns: There is a Fountain Filled with Blood · (Cowper 1731 to 1800; severe depression from 1763; three attempts on his own life; the friendship with John Newton at Olney; the hymn written around 1771 on Zechariah 13:1 and published 1772; The United Methodist Hymnal no. 622; hymnal editors' attempts to soften the imagery, including the 1819 change of the opening line)
Anglican Compass, The Story of Our Hymns: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood · (Cowper's biography and his 68 contributions to Olney Hymns; the subject of each of the five stanzas as commonly printed, used here for the stanza-by-stanza description)
Verse By Verse Commentary, Zechariah 13:1 · (a reading that holds the fountain's audience to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem as the nation, calls the cleansing a further fulfilment of Zechariah 12:10, and still identifies the fountain with the shed blood of Christ)

Corrections

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