# Angels We Have Heard on High: lyrics with the Bible verses behind them

Angels We Have Heard on High retells Luke 2:8-16 as a conversation: the angels praise God, someone asks the shepherds why they are so glad, and they answer, “Come to Bethlehem and see.” The refrain, “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” is the angels’ words in Luke 2:14 in Latin: Glory to God in the highest.

Words: French, “Les Anges dans nos campagnes,” 1700s or 1800s. English by James Chadwick, 1862. Music: Traditional French, “Gloria”. The words are in the public domain.

Source: https://www.lumin.faith/christmas/carols/angels-we-have-heard-on-high. Scripture quotations are from the Lumin Translation.

## The words, line by line

### Verse 1

- Angels we have heard on high ([Luke 2:13](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#13): “All at once there was with the angel a vast crowd of heaven’s army, praising God and saying,”)
- Sweetly singing o’er the plains Beyond the Bible: Luke says “saying.” He does not say they sang.
- And the mountains in reply ([Isaiah 55:12](https://www.lumin.faith/read/isaiah/55#12): “For you will go out with gladness and be brought along in peace; the mountains and hills will burst out singing in front of you, and every tree in the field will clap its hands.”)
- Echoing their joyous strains

### Refrain

- Gloria in excelsis Deo ([Luke 2:14](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#14): “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people in whom he delights!”) Beyond the Bible: Latin for “Glory to God in the highest.”
- Gloria in excelsis Deo

### Verse 2

- Shepherds, why this jubilee?
- Why your joyous strains prolong?
- What the gladsome tidings be ([Luke 2:10](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#10): “The angel told them, Do not be afraid, for look, I am proclaiming to you good news of great joy that will belong to all the people:”)
- Which inspire your heavenly song?

### Verse 3

- Come to Bethlehem and see ([Luke 2:15](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#15): “After the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, Come, let us make our way to Bethlehem and see this event that has taken place, which the Lord has revealed to us.”)
- Him whose birth the angels sing ([Luke 2:13](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#13))
- Come, adore on bended knee ([Psalm 95:6](https://www.lumin.faith/read/psalm/95#6): “Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Yahweh our Maker.”) Beyond the Bible: Luke does not say the shepherds knelt. In Matthew the magi bow down.
- Christ the Lord, the newborn King ([Luke 2:11](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#11): “this very day in David’s city a Savior has been born for you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.”)

### Verse 4

- See him in a manger laid ([Luke 2:16](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#16): “They went quickly and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and to the baby lying in the manger.”)
- Whom the choirs of angels praise ([Luke 2:13](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#13))
- Mary, Joseph, lend your aid ([Luke 2:16](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#16))
- While our hearts in love we raise

## Where it goes beyond the Bible

- Luke says the angels were “praising God and saying.” He does not say they sang.
- The mountains echoing back and the shepherds kneeling are the carol’s picture. Luke says the shepherds hurried to Bethlehem and found the baby.

## The story of the carol

It began as a French carol, “Les Anges dans nos campagnes” (“The angels in our fields”). It was sung in France for years before it was first printed in the early 1800s. No one knows who wrote it.

James Chadwick, a Catholic bishop in the north of England, made the English words in 1862. The long, rolling “Glo-o-o-ria” in the refrain is meant to sound like a crowd of voices filling the sky.