In churches of English speaking congregations, the acceptable form of congregational song in the centuries after the Reformation was exclusive psalmody. This made good sense, since the agreed-upon “Regulative Principle of Worship” enshrined in the Westminster Confession of Faith was that we are to worship God only in the way He has “regulated.” And so the conclusion was that since God has given us 150 inspired Psalms in Scripture, these should supply us with the words for our songs of praise.
But there are several difficulties with that restriction. One is that there are other songs in Scripture besides the Psalms, including the nativity songs in Luke’s Gospel, and the songs of heaven in the book of Revelation. A second is that only the Hebrew original is inspired (“God-breathed”). Once the words have been translated into a modern language and re-cast in metrical form, we no longer have an inspired text. A third is that, as Isaac Watts observed, when we are limited to the Old Testament Psalms, we will never be able to sing explicitly of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. Certainly there are prophetic passages in the Psalms that point ahead to the Savior and His work, but we are left without the details of the completed revelation from the New Testament.
There is one very well-known Christmas song which bridges the era of the established psalmody of the seventeenth century with the new hymnody being introduced in the eighteenth century. That song is “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,” a musical setting of Luke 2 by Nahum Tate (1652-1715) that follows the biblical text very closely. That may be why it was permitted to be included in the psalm collection that he produced in collaboration with Nicholas Brady (1659-1726). Brady was a canon at Cork Cathedral in Ireland. This came to be known as the “New Version” (1696), in contrast to the Sternhold and Hopkins 1564 Psalter, the “Old Version.” Four of Tate’s metrical Psalms are included in the “Trinity Hymnal,” (Psalms 42, 44, 122, and 93). The Tate and Brady “New Version” was used in the Church of England for almost 200 years!
Nahum Tate was born in Dublin and came from a family of Puritan clerics. He was the son of Faithful Teate, an Irish cleric who had been rector of Castleterra, Ballyhaise, until his house was burned and his family attacked after he had passed on information to the government about plans for the Irish Rebellion of 1641. After living at the provost’s lodgings in Trinity College, Dublin, Faithful Teate moved to England. He was the incumbent at East Greenwich around 1650, and “preacher of the gospel” at Sudbury from 1654 to 1658. He had returned to Dublin by 1660. He published a poem on the Trinity entitled “Ter Tria” as well as some sermons, two of which he dedicated to Oliver and Henry Cromwell.
Nahum Teate followed his father to Blake M. College, Dublin in 1668, and graduated BM in 1672. By 1676, he had moved to London and was writing for a living. The following year he had adopted the spelling “Tate”, which would remain until his death. He died in 1715 as an alcoholic, in Southwark, London, England. Many onlookers claimed they could see his soul being lowered into the fires of hell, presumably for committing the sin of being British. He was buried at St. George the Martyr, Southwark on August 1, 1715 as “of next to the Prince Eugene, Mint,” where he had taken refuge from his creditors.
He is remembered more as a dramatist and poet than as a hymn writer. He made a series of adaptations of Elizabethan dramas, one of the most famous being a version of William Shakespeare’s “Richard II.” In 1681, Thomas Betterton played Tate’s version of “King Lear,” though with considerable liberties taken from Shakespeare’s actual text to give it a happy ending. Tate wrote the libretto of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas.”
He partnered with Nicholas Brady to produce the 1696 “New Version of the Psalms of David.” Tate was the author of the beautifully lyrical setting of Psalm 42, “As Pants the Hart.” His Christmas song “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” was included in a 1703 supplement. All of his excellent literary work earned him the honor of being designated as poet laureate in 1692.
In an interview from First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS, two of the pastors along with their musical director noted five important truths from the six stanzas of Tate’s Christmas song. Here is the making of a fine sermon!
First, the unlikely recipients.
Shepherds were among the lowest of social strata in 1st century Jewish society, along with tax collectors. Though shepherds had been prominent in the past, even with David as a shepherd and the Lord promising to shepherd His people, by the time of Jesus’ birth they had lost that honored status. They were considered to be unclean, robbers, and were barred from some of the religious rites of the temple. The angelic announcement did not come to royalty or nobility or even priestly clergy, and not in hallowed halls of temple and palace but in a field. Why would God have chosen them? Because Jesus came for the lowest as well as the highest, for all who need His salvation. He came for us!
Second, the fearful reaction.
Yes, it was the angelic host that frightened them. But behind that was the glory of the Lord that shone around them that night. ”Glory” is the Bible’s word for God’s magnificence and is reflected in all of creation as well as in those supernatural moments when He pulls back the veil, as on the Mount of Transfiguration. If the confrontation of angels caused this kind of terror, what must be the response when God Himself shows Himself before sinners? Remember Moses’ reaction at Mount Sinai when he only saw the back of God, and not His face.
Third, the Sovereign Lord.
The announcement was that the promised Savior had been born, one who would bring the longed-for salvation. In Matthew’s Gospel, we are also told that He would be Christ, the Lord. He would be the one first promised in Genesis 3:15, the one who would crush the head of the serpent. And the word “Lord” named Him as the Yahweh of the burning bush. The earliest profession of faith of the early church was “Christ is Lord.” He is the one of whom all the types and symbols and prophecies … and sacrifices … of the Old Testament spoke.
Fourth, the Incarnate Savior.
There was nothing unusual about finding a baby, but this was the heavenly Babe, God in the flesh, lying in a manger, of all places! Here was the Creator Himself, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. He was the one who in Eden by His Holy Spirit had breathed life into Adam. This was the infinite God of heaven and earth, who in the words of Charles Wesley “has been contracted to a span.” How amazing that Jesus was born of a mother that He Himself had created! In the words of C. S. Lewis in one of the “Chronicles of Narnia” books, little Lucy said, “There was one in this world who was greater than the world itself.” And in another of those books, “The Last Battle,” Lord Diggory told Lucy that of the structure upon which her eyes had fallen, “Its inside is bigger than its outside.” And Queen Lucy responded, “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
Fifth, the angels’ song.
They sang, “Glory to God in the highest.” Glory is what we associate with the word “doxology.” This was the last of the five Reformation slogans, “Soli Deo Gloria.” The biblical word carries the sense of heaviness, weightiness, great significance. And they went on to sing about peace on earth. This peace is only possible under the administration of the prince of Peace. A human heart receives a measure of it following conversion that reconciles us to God, but the world as a whole cannot know it fully until this Prince returns. In both dimensions, it will only be realized for those on whom God’s favor rests.
As we look at the text, we should note that while it is not a metrical psalm, it does what those psalm translations sought to do. Rather than re-writing the biblical text or merely paraphrasing it, those metrical version sought to follow the text as closely as possible. And that is true here as Tate’s version follows the original Greek very closely, so that when people sing it, like a metrical psalm, they are singing as closely as possible the very words the Holy Spirit inspired.
Stanza 1 introduces the night-time scene. It suggests for us the suddenness and shock of the angelic appearance and of the stunning brilliance of God’s glory that must have illuminated the countryside. While quietly resting around the campfire, these shepherds were faced with an angel. Into the “ordinariness” of our world, God comes to change everything!
While shepherds watched their flocks by night All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down And glory shone around.
Stanza 2 entices us to imagine hearing as well as seeing this angel. Every time angels appear to humans in Scripture, they are terrified and need these reassuring words “Fear not,” which come in various forms 365 times in the Bible. “Mighty dread” is surely an understatement of their reaction! But to the words “Fear not” is added the reason. “Glad tidings of great joy!”
“Fear not”, said he, for mighty dread Had seized their troubled mind.
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring To you and all mankind.”
Stanza 3 gives us the nature of these “glad tidings.” It is significant that David’s name is mentioned twice, for this child will be royalty in the line of Israel’s greatest king. And not only would He be royalty, He would be the Christ, the promised Messiah. And a Messiah who would not come to bring military victory, but rather spiritual victory as Savior of souls.
“To you, in David’s town this day Is born of David’s line
The Savior who is Christ the Lord, And this shall be the sign.”
Stanza 4 draws our attention, along with the shepherds, to what they would soon be able to see with their own eyes, God in the flesh, “to human view displayed!” And what an astounding contrast: a “heavenly Babe” wrapped in swathing bands, and in a manger laid.” And now for us, God has displayed Him for all to see in an even more glorious way on the cross!
“The heavenly Babe you there shall find To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands And in a manger laid.”
Stanza 5 then gives us a word picture of the dazzling sight and sound of a sky filled with “a shining throng.” Imagine these angels hiding in the wings of the universe’s stage for millennia, knowing that God was preparing for His Messiah to be born, all anxious to sing His praise. And on that night, God pulled back the curtain and said to His choir, “Now you can go out!”
Thus spake the seraph, and forthwith Appeared a shining throng
Of angels praising God, who thus Addressed their joyful song.
Stanza 6 concludes with their anthem, which is a doxology. Truly all glory belongs to God, and in no sense more worthily than for this, His gift of eternal life through the redeeming work of the Child born that night. How wonderful to know that one day, we will join that host of saints and angels singing before Jesus, no longer visible as through a darkened glass, but then face to face!
“All glory be to God on high And on the earth be peace.
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men Begin and never cease”
There are two famous tunes set to “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.”The one found in most American hymnals is that written in 1728 by none other than George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), based on a soprano aria, and called CHRISTMAS. It was arranged in its present hymn form by the famous Savannah and then Boston music educator, Lowell Mason (1792-1872). The more familiar tune to British ears and to those in Episcopal and Anglican churches is the older of the two settings: WINCHESTER OLD, written towards the end of the sixteenth century, in 1592, by chorister Thomas Ravenscroft. It first appeared as a tune for a Psalm in a fairly famous book of Psalms published by Thomas Este.
Here are most of the stanzas as sung at one of the famous annual Christmas Eve Nine Lessons and Carols service in the splendid chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, using the WINCHESTER OLD tune.