Hark the Herald Angels Sing is a 1793 carol that the Classical FM Station is playing a lot. That's because it is a wonderful song - a beautiful melody with great energy and vitality. The music was written by Felix Mendelssohn to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the introduction of the printing press. It was titled God is Light. Mendelssohn expressly stated he wanted the tune to never be sung to sacred words.
The authors of the carol/lyrics were Charles and John Wesley in 1793. The carol was sung to various melodies until being married with Mendelssohn's tune in 1855 when it was adapted to the carol.
The Wesleys also had problems. Theirs was people revising the carol's "lyrics". It started out with Hark how all the welkin rings. Welkin means cloud, sky or heavens - and wasn't very common so the publisher changed it. This is what the Wesleys thought of the change:
“Many gentlemen have done my brother and me (though without naming us) the honor of reprinting many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome do to so, provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them, for they are really not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the verse. Therefore, I must beg of them one of these two favors: either to let them stand just as they are, to take them for better for worse; or to add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page; that we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men.”
So here we have Angels in the carol. John Wesley was more notably known as the founder of the Methodist movement and wrote three sermons on angels, so did the inserted reference to angels offend him.
But they seem problematic - one source says they are mentioned 273 times in the Bible. I wonder about them as I find all kinds of different "facts" about them. Just take this item: how many angels have names?
One source says that there are three named angels - Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer, aka Satan at Daniel 8:16, Luke 1:19 and Luke 1:26. Gabriel is the angel who appears to Mary.
Someone else puts them at Daniel 10:13 Michael, Daniel 9:21 for Gabriel, Genesis 16:7-8 (for the Angel of the Lord) and finally, Job 1:6 for Satan.
Then somewhere else there is Abaddon (Rev 9:11).
Another source says: "their names all end in “El” meaning they (according to Jewish thought) are direct messengers of the mind of God (El) so that Michael (he is is like God), Raphael (the healing of God), Gabriel (messenger of God), Uriel (light of God) are all aspects of God’s presence."
So now there is Raphael and Uriel, too. How many have names now?
Check out 21 facts about angels HERE. These are things like: What do they look like? Are there female and male? On the other hand, there are 5 facts, 7 facts, 10 facts, 25 facts and so on, to keep you entertained.
Here are three "heralding" angels - these were on Bloor Street West at the music studio entrance.
