O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: Lyrics, Latin and Meaning

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is the great hymn of Advent, a sung paraphrase of the seven O Antiphons that the Church chants at Vespers in the last days before Christmas. Its Latin original, Veni, veni, Emmanuel, was printed in a Catholic hymnal at Cologne in 1710, and the English words most people know were made from it by John Mason Neale in 1851 and settled in their familiar form in 1861. Below are the full English lyrics, the Latin text with a literal translation, the meaning of each verse, and the history of the hymn.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: the full lyrics

This is the standard English text of five verses, as fixed in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) from Neale's translation; the two verses many hymnals add are given just after. It is sung in Advent, and most of all from 17 December, when the O Antiphons begin.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law,
In cloud, and majesty, and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The two added verses: "O come, Thou Wisdom" and "O come, Desire of nations"

The Latin hymn of 1710 has only five verses. Two more, for the two O Antiphons it left out, were written in Latin in the nineteenth century, and their best-known English form was published by Henry Sloane Coffin in 1916. Many hymnals now sing the Wisdom verse first, so that the hymn follows the order of the antiphons from 17 to 23 December:

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Hymnals differ in small ways: some print "O come, Thou Branch of Jesse's tree" for the second verse, some "O come, Thou Dayspring from on high", and the order of verses moves from book to book. The substance never changes, because every verse is tied to one antiphon of the Breviary.

Veni, veni, Emmanuel: the Latin lyrics

Here is the Latin hymn as it appears in the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum (Cologne, 1710), five verses with the refrain Gaude, gaude:

Veni, veni, Emmanuel,
captivum solve Israel,
qui gemit in exilio,
privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, O Iesse virgula,
ex hostis tuos ungula,
de specu tuos tartari
educ et antro barathri.
Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, veni, O Oriens,
solare nos adveniens,
noctis depelle nebulas,
dirasque noctis tenebras.
Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, clavis Davidica,
regna reclude caelica,
fac iter tutum superum,
et claude vias inferum.
Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

Veni, veni, Adonai,
qui populo in Sinai
legem dedisti vertice
in maiestate gloriae.
Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel
nascetur pro te, Israel.

The two later Latin verses, printed in Joseph Mohr's Cantiones Sacrae of 1878, are Veni, O Sapientia, quae hic disponis omnia; veni, viam prudentiae ut doceas et gloriae ("Come, O Wisdom, who orderest all things here; come, to teach us the way of prudence and of glory") and Veni, veni, Rex gentium, veni, Redemptor hominum, ut salves tuos famulos peccati sibi conscios ("Come, King of the nations, come, Redeemer of men, to save Thy servants who know their sin"). Mohr's book also changed the refrain to Gaude, gaude, O Israel, mox veniet Emmanuel — "Rejoice, O Israel, soon shall Emmanuel come."

A literal English translation of the Latin

Neale's English is a free and singable paraphrase. Word for word, the Latin says this:

1. Come, come, Emmanuel; set captive Israel free, who groans in exile, deprived of the Son of God. Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall be born for thee, O Israel.
2. Come, O Rod of Jesse; rescue Thine own from the claw of the enemy; lead them out of the cave of hell and the pit of the abyss.
3. Come, come, O Dayspring; comfort us by Thy coming; drive away the mists of night and the dreadful darkness of night.
4. Come, Key of David; open the heavenly kingdom; make safe the way on high and close the roads below.
5. Come, come, Adonai, who gavest the law to Thy people on the summit of Sinai, in the majesty of glory.

The refrain is the one place where Neale changed the sense: the Latin says Emmanuel shall be born for Israel (nascetur), which points straight at Christmas night.

The meaning of the hymn: the O Antiphons in verse

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is the O Antiphons turned into metre. From 17 to 23 December the Roman Breviary sings, before and after the Magnificat at Vespers, seven antiphons that each greet the coming Christ by a title from the prophets and end with the cry Veni, "Come." The full Latin and English of the seven, day by day, is in our page on the O Antiphons of Advent. Each verse of the hymn takes one of them:

• Emmanuel (23 December) — O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster: "God with us," from Isaias: "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (Isaias vii. 14, Douay-Rheims).
• Rod of Jesse (19 December) — O Radix Iesse: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root" (Isaias xi. 1).
• Dayspring (21 December) — O Oriens: the rising sun of the canticle of Zachary, "the Orient from on high hath visited us" (St Luke i. 78).
• Key of David (20 December) — O Clavis David: "I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut" (Isaias xxii. 22).
• Lord of Might, Adonai (18 December) — O Adonai: the Lord who spoke to Moses in the burning bush and gave the Law on Sinai.
• Wisdom (17 December) — O Sapientia: the Wisdom that "reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1).
• Desire of nations (22 December) — O Rex Gentium: the King and cornerstone whom all peoples long for.

Who is Emmanuel in "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"?

Emmanuel is Our Lord Jesus Christ. The name is Hebrew and means "God with us"; St Matthew applies the prophecy of Isaias to the birth of Christ of the Virgin Mary: "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" (St Matthew i. 23). The "Israel" of the hymn is first the people of the Old Covenant waiting for the Messias, and then the Church, the new Israel, which in every Advent makes their waiting her own.

What is a "Dayspring"?

"Dayspring" is an old English word for the dawn. It renders the Latin Oriens, the East, the place where the sun rises, and it is the word of the King James Bible in the canticle of Zachary; the Douay-Rheims translates "the Orient from on high." In the hymn Christ is the rising sun that ends the long night of sin: "Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight."

"Ransom captive Israel"

The first verse sets the tone of the whole hymn. Israel is pictured as the exiles in Babylon, mourning far from home, and the exile is the state of the whole human race after the sin of Adam, cut off from God until the Son of God appears. To ransom is to buy back a captive; the Redeemer will pay the price Himself. This is why the hymn is sung in Advent, the season of longing, and not at Christmas: it is a prayer of men who are still waiting.

Who wrote O Come, O Come, Emmanuel? The history

The antiphons. The seven O Antiphons are far older than the hymn. They go back to the early Middle Ages, and they stand to this day in the Breviary at the Magnificat of Vespers from 17 to 23 December.

The Latin hymn. The metrical Latin text Veni, veni, Emmanuel is first found in print in the seventh edition of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, a hymnal of the German Jesuits published at Cologne in 1710; the collection itself went back to the Jesuit Johannes Heringsdorf in 1610. Claims that the hymn is a work of the twelfth century have no evidence behind them. Its author is unknown. The German scholar Hermann Adalbert Daniel reprinted it in his Thesaurus Hymnologicus in 1844.

Neale's translation. John Mason Neale, an Anglican priest and a great translator of the Church's Latin and Greek hymns, found it in Daniel. In 1851 he published the Latin in his Hymni Ecclesiae and an English version beginning "Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel." After revisions, the text appeared in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861 as "O come, O come, Emmanuel," and that version spread through the English-speaking world.

The tune. The melody, called Veni Emmanuel, was published by Thomas Helmore in the Hymnal Noted in the 1850s, as taken "from a French Missal." For a century no one could find the source, until in 1966 the musicologist Mary Berry found the same melody in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan processional now in Paris, where it carries other words, a set of verses sung in procession at funerals. The tune is therefore medieval and French; it was joined to the Latin hymn only in the nineteenth century. Its modal line, close to Gregorian chant, is why it sounds so ancient.

Is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel a Catholic song?

Yes. Its Latin text was written for Catholics and printed in a Jesuit hymnal, and every verse is drawn from the Catholic liturgy of Advent. The English version is the work of an Anglican, and it is sung today by Protestant churches as well, which is why so many recordings exist. But its source is the Roman Breviary, and it belongs most naturally on Catholic lips. It is not itself a liturgical hymn of the 1962 Breviary: the Office sings the antiphons in their own words, with their own chant. The hymn is a devotional song, fittingly sung at Low Mass in Advent, at Benediction, at home around the Advent wreath, or during the days of the Christmas novena, which takes up the same antiphons from 16 to 24 December.

How to sing it through Advent

A simple and old way to pray with this hymn is to follow the antiphons day by day. From 17 to 23 December, sing the verse that matches the antiphon of the day, after reading the antiphon itself from the Breviary: Wisdom on the 17th, Adonai on the 18th, the Rod of Jesse on the 19th, the Key of David on the 20th, the Dayspring on the 21st, the King of nations on the 22nd, and Emmanuel on the 23rd. On Christmas Eve the hymn falls silent, because the One it calls for has come; the Church turns to the joy of Christmas.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel lyrics PDF

We do not offer a PDF. The complete lyrics are above, English and Latin, and the page prints as it is. Better still, carry the antiphons and their hymn in the Iter Fidei app: the antiphon of each day in Latin and English, with a reminder at the hour you choose, and offline. Join early access here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the lyrics to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?

The first verse runs: "O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel." The full text of all seven verses, with the Latin, is given above.

What is the meaning of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?

It is a prayer for the coming of Christ, made of the seven O Antiphons of Advent. Each verse calls on Him by one of His titles in the prophets — Emmanuel, Wisdom, Lord of Might, Rod of Jesse, Key of David, Dayspring, Desire of nations — and asks Him to come and free mankind from the exile of sin.

Who wrote the hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?

The Latin hymn is anonymous and was first printed at Cologne in 1710. The English text is the translation of John Mason Neale (1851), revised for Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861. The tune was published by Thomas Helmore and comes from a fifteenth-century French processional.

Is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel a Christmas song?

Strictly, it is an Advent hymn. It asks Christ to come, and so it belongs to the weeks before Christmas, above all from 17 to 23 December, when the O Antiphons are sung at Vespers. It is often printed among Christmas carols, but its voice is that of waiting, not of fulfilment.

What are the Latin lyrics of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?

It begins Veni, veni, Emmanuel; captivum solve Israel, qui gemit in exilio, privatus Dei Filio. Gaude, gaude! Emmanuel nascetur pro te, Israel. All five original verses and the two later ones are given above.

Why does the hymn speak of Israel?

Because the prophecies it sings were first given to Israel, the people who waited for the Messias. The Church reads them as her own: she is the new Israel, and in Advent she takes up the longing of the patriarchs and prophets for the Saviour, while looking also to His second coming at the end of time.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Breviary, the O Antiphons and the traditional prayers of Advent, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version: Isaias vii. 14, xi. 1, xxii. 22; Wisdom viii. 1; St Matthew i. 23; St Luke i. 78. Breviarium Romanum, Magnificat antiphons of 17–23 December. Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, 7th ed. (Cologne, 1710). J. M. Neale, Hymni Ecclesiae and Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (1851); Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). J. Mohr, Cantiones Sacrae (1878).