When Nahum Tate, Poet Laureate of England, sat down to write a metrical version of Luke 2:8-14 in 1700, he was navigating one of the most contentious religious disputes in English history: whether it was permissible to sing anything in church other than the Psalms. The Reformation's insistence that worship use scriptural texts had created a long-running argument about whether human compositions - even those closely based on Scripture - were legitimate additions to the Psalms. Tate's solution was brilliant: he wrote a hymn so faithful to the biblical text that it was effectively a versified paraphrase rather than a composition, and the church accepted it.
The text follows Luke 2:8-14 with remarkable fidelity. Verses one and two describe the shepherds 'keeping watch o'er their flocks by night' when the angel appeared - a paraphrase of Luke 2:8-9: 'And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.' The terror of the shepherds, their reassurance by the angel, the announcement of the Savior's birth in the city of David, and the heavenly host's doxology all appear in the hymn in the same sequence as the biblical narrative.
Luke 2:10 - 'But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people'' - is rendered in the second stanza with almost word-for-word fidelity: 'Fear not, said he, for mighty dread had seized their troubled mind; glad tidings of great joy I bring to you and all mankind.' This close adherence to the Authorized Version's phrasing was deliberate and politically necessary: the text had to be identifiably scriptural to pass the scrutiny of church authorities who were suspicious of hymn singing.
Luke 2:11 - 'Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord' - is the angel's central proclamation, and Tate renders it in the third stanza with a clarity that reflects his Poet Laureate's facility with English verse: 'To you in David's town this day is born of David's line a Saviour who is Christ the Lord; and this shall be the sign.' The double Davidic identification - 'David's town' and 'David's line' - honors the theological point that Jesus's messianic identity requires both geographical and genealogical connection to the covenant king.
Luke 2:13-14 - 'Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests'' - is the text's climax, and Tate's rendering of it maintains the angelic Gloria's full cosmic scope: 'All glory be to God on high and to the earth be peace; goodwill henceforth from heaven to men begin and never cease.'
The fact that this hymn was one of only sixteen approved for use in the Church of England at its introduction - and that it remains among the most widely sung Christmas carols in Britain three centuries later - reflects the genius of Tate's approach. By staying so close to the biblical text, he created a carol that is simultaneously liturgically orthodox and humanly satisfying, a paraphrase that has never been replaced because it has never been bettered. The variety of tunes to which it has been set - including the distinctive Yorkshire tune 'Cranbrook' that features in the climactic carol service scene in the British cultural memory - attests to its enduring vitality.