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Holy, Holy, Holy

Reginald Heber 1783-1826 John B. Dykes, 1823-1876

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God, Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert and art and ever more shalt be.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Tho the darkness hide Thee,
Tho the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee;
Perfect in pow’r, in love and purity.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord, God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and skiy and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Isaiah 6: 1-8
Revelation 4: 6-11

Reginald Heber was born in the area of Cheshire, England, of scholarly and well-to-do parents. At the age of seventeen, he entered Oxford University, where his scholarship and literary abilities received much attention. He was ordained to the ministry in the Anglican Church and throughout his ministry was noted as a prolific writer, making frequent contributions to magazines with his poetry, essays, and hymns.

In 1823, just three years before his death at the age of forty-three, Heber was sent to India to serve as the Bishop of Calcutta. The pressures of his work along with the humid climate of the area wore heavily upon his health. One morning after preaching to a large outdoor crowd, he suffered an apparent heat stroke and died very suddenly.

“Holy, Holy, Holy” was written specifically for use on Trinity Sunday, which occurs eight weeks after Easter. The emphasis of the hymn is to reaffirm the doctrine of the Triune Godhead. Though the word “trinity” is not found in the Scripture, the truth of three Persons, equal and eternal with each other, is clearly taught throughout God’s Word.

The tune for this text was written by Dr. John Bacchus Dykes. John Dykes was one of England’s leading church musicians of the nineteenth century. He wrote more than three hundred hymn tunes. Many of them are still in use today.