# It Came Upon the Midnight Clear: lyrics with the Bible verses behind them

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear is built on one verse: the angels’ “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” in Luke 2:14. It never names Jesus, Mary, or Bethlehem. It asks why a world that heard the song of peace is still at war, and looks ahead to the peace Isaiah promised.

Words: Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1849. Music: “Carol,” Richard Storrs Willis, 1850. In Britain, “Noel,” arranged by Arthur Sullivan, 1874. The words are in the public domain. 4 of its 5 verses.

Source: https://www.lumin.faith/christmas/carols/it-came-upon-the-midnight-clear. Scripture quotations are from the Lumin Translation.

## The words, line by line

### Verse 1

- It came upon the midnight clear ([Luke 2:8](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#8): “There were shepherds in that same area who were staying out in the open country, standing guard over their flock through the night.”) Beyond the Bible: Luke says night. He does not say midnight.
- That glorious song of old ([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,”)
- From angels bending near the earth ([Luke 2:9](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#9): “Then an angel of the Lord stood over them, the Lord’s glory shone all around them, and they were struck with great fear.”)
- To touch their harps of gold ([Revelation 5:8](https://www.lumin.faith/read/revelation/5#8): “When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of them held a harp, and they held golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.”) Beyond the Bible: Luke’s angels have no harps. The harps are in Revelation’s heaven.
- “Peace on the earth, good will to men ([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!”)
- From heaven’s all-gracious King”
- The world in solemn stillness lay
- To hear the angels sing ([Luke 2:13](https://www.lumin.faith/read/luke/2#13)) Beyond the Bible: Luke says “praising God and saying.”

### Verse 2

- Still through the cloven skies they come
- With peaceful wings unfurled Beyond the Bible: Luke does not describe the angels’ wings.
- And still their heavenly music floats
- O’er all the weary world ([Matthew 11:28](https://www.lumin.faith/read/matthew/11#28): “Come to me, all of you who are worn out from toil and loaded with burdens, and I will give you rest.”)
- Above its sad and lowly plains
- They bend on hovering wing
- And ever o’er its Babel sounds ([Genesis 11:9](https://www.lumin.faith/read/genesis/11#9): “That is why it was called Babel, because there Yahweh confused the language of the whole earth, and from there Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”)
- The blessed angels sing

### Verse 3

- Yet with the woes of sin and strife ([Romans 8:22](https://www.lumin.faith/read/romans/8#22): “For we know that the entire creation has been groaning together and laboring in birth pains together up to the present.”)
- The world has suffered long
- Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
- Two thousand years of wrong
- And man, at war with man, hears not ([James 4:1](https://www.lumin.faith/read/james/4#1): “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that are at war within you?”)
- The love-song which they bring
- O hush the noise, ye men of strife ([Psalm 46:10](https://www.lumin.faith/read/psalm/46#10): “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be lifted high among the nations; I will be lifted high on the earth.”)
- And hear the angels sing

### Verse 4

- For lo, the days are hastening on ([Isaiah 2:2](https://www.lumin.faith/read/isaiah/2#2): “In the last days the mountain of Yahweh’s house will be established as the highest of the mountains and raised above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it.”)
- By prophet bards foretold ([Isaiah 2:4](https://www.lumin.faith/read/isaiah/2#4): “He will judge between the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and they will not learn war anymore.”)
- When with the ever-circling years
- Comes round the age of gold Beyond the Bible: The golden age is a Roman poets’ picture, not the Bible’s.
- When peace shall over all the earth ([Isaiah 11:9](https://www.lumin.faith/read/isaiah/11#9): “No one will do harm or bring ruin anywhere on my holy mountain, for the knowledge of Yahweh will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.”)
- Its ancient splendors fling
- And the whole world give back the song ([Revelation 5:13](https://www.lumin.faith/read/revelation/5#13): “And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and everything in them, saying, To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”)
- Which now the angels sing

## Where it goes beyond the Bible

- Luke says the angels came at night, not at midnight, and he gives no weather.
- Luke’s angels have no harps or wings, and Luke says they were “saying,” not singing. The harps are from the heavenly scenes in Revelation.
- “The age of gold” is a picture from Roman poets. The Bible speaks of a coming peace, not a golden age.

## The story of the carol

Edmund Hamilton Sears was a pastor in Massachusetts. He wrote this poem in 1849, the year after the war between the United States and Mexico, and printed it in a church paper in Boston.

A year later Richard Storrs Willis, a composer and music critic, wrote the tune most Americans sing. In Britain it is sung to “Noel,” arranged by Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan.