Advent guide · Historic texts and Scripture
The O Antiphons: the Scripture behind each one (December 17–23)
The O Antiphons are seven short prayers sung at Evening Prayer on the last seven days before Christmas Eve, December 17 to 23. Each one calls Christ by a title taken from Scripture (Wisdom, Lord, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dawn, King of the nations, Emmanuel) and ends with a plea that he come. Below are all seven in Latin and in a public-domain English translation, with the Bible passages behind every line.
What the O Antiphons are
An antiphon is a short verse sung before and after a psalm or canticle. These seven belong to the Magnificat, Mary’s song in Luke 1:46–55 (Luke 1), at Vespers, the Church’s evening prayer. They are called the “O Antiphons” or “Great Antiphons” because each begins with “O”. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia notes that they have been found in manuscripts of the eleventh century, and that Thurston argued in The Month in 1905 that they are much older.
In the Roman rite they run from December 17 to 23. Dom Prosper Guéranger, the nineteenth-century Abbot of Solesmes, explains that they are sung both before and after the Magnificat, as on major (“double”) feasts, and that some churches once sang them three times. The Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer of 1662 also remembers them: its calendar prints “O Sapientia” against December 16, a day before the Roman series begins.
December 17 — O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
Latin: O Sapientia, quæ ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter, suaviterque disponens omnia; veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiæ.English: O Wisdom, that proceedest from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end, disposing all things with strength and sweetness! come and teach us the way of prudence.
The first line borrows Wisdom’s own words in Sirach 24: “I came out of the mouth of the Most High” (WEB, Sirach 24:3; in the Douay–Rheims the verse is Ecclesiasticus 24:5). The middle comes from Wisdom 8:1, which the Douay–Rheims renders “She reacheth therefore from end unto end mightily, and disposeth all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8:1; WEB Wisdom 8:1). The closing plea echoes Proverbs 9:6, where the Douay–Rheims reads “walk by the ways of prudence” (Proverbs 9). Christians read these texts of Christ, whom Paul calls “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and on whom Isaiah says the Spirit of wisdom will rest (Isaiah 11:2).
Sirach and Wisdom are in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles but not in most Protestant ones; on this site they appear in the World English Bible and the Douay–Rheims.
December 18 — O Adonai (O Lord)
Latin: O Adonai, et dux domus Israël, qui Moysi in igne flammæ rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti; veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extenso.English: O Adonaï, and leader of the house of Israel, who appearedst to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gavest him the law on Sinaï; come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm.
Adonai is the Hebrew title “Lord” (Strong’s H136). The antiphon retells the Exodus: the Lord appearing to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush (Exodus 3:2), coming down on Sinai and giving the commandments (Exodus 19:20; Exodus 20:1), and the promise “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm” (Exodus 6:6). Isaiah gathers the same titles: “the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).
December 19 — O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
Latin: O radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.English: O Root of Jesse, who standest as the standard of the people; before whom Kings shall not open their lips; to whom the nations shall pray: come and deliver us; tarry now no more.
Jesse was King David’s father (Ruth 4:22). Isaiah promises a shoot from his stump (Isaiah 11:1) and “a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek” (Isaiah 11:10); Paul quotes this verse of Christ in Romans 15:12. The kings who fall silent come from Isaiah 52:15, “the kings shall shut their mouths at him” (Isaiah 52). “Tarry no more” recalls Habakkuk 2:3: “it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:3).
December 20 — O Clavis David (O Key of David)
Latin: O Clavis David et Sceptrum domus Israël, qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit; veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.English: O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel! who openest, and no man shutteth: who shuttest, and no man openeth; come and lead the captive from prison, sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
In Isaiah 22:22 God lays “the key of the house of David” on a royal steward, so that he opens and none shuts (Isaiah 22:22). Revelation 3:7 gives the same words to the risen Christ, “he that hath the key of David” (Revelation 3:7). The prisoner comes from Isaiah 42:7, “to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isaiah 42:7), and the darkness and shadow of death from Psalm 107:10 (Psalm 106 in the Douay–Rheims) and Zechariah’s song in Luke 1:79.
December 21 — O Oriens (O Dayspring)
Latin: O Oriens, splendor lucis æternæ, et sol justitiæ; veni et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.English: O Orient! splendour of eternal light, and Sun of Justice! come and enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death.
Oriens means the rising of the sun, the east. The title comes from the Latin Bible, and the Douay–Rheims keeps it where the KJV has “the Branch”: “Behold A man, Orient is His Name” (Zechariah 6:12, Douay–Rheims; compare KJV). In Luke 1:78 the same word becomes the KJV’s “the dayspring from on high hath visited us” (Luke 1:78), where the Douay–Rheims again has “the Orient”. “Splendour of eternal light” is Wisdom 7:26, “the brightness of eternal light” in the Douay–Rheims (Wisdom 7:26); the Sun of Justice is Malachi’s “Sun of righteousness” (Malachi 4:2). The antiphon falls near the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and its light answers Isaiah 9:2, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2).
December 22 — O Rex Gentium (O King of the nations)
Latin: O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, Lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum; veni, et salva hominem quem de limo formasti.English: O King of nations, and their Desired One, and the Corner-Stone that makest both one; come and save man whom thou formedst out of slime.
“O King of nations” is Jeremiah 10:7 (Jeremiah 10). “Their Desired One” rests on Haggai 2:7 as the Latin Bible read it: the KJV has “the desire of all nations shall come” (Haggai 2:7) and the Douay–Rheims “The Desired of All Nations Shall Come” (verse 8 in its numbering, Aggeus 2:8), while the BSB, WEB and ASV translate the Hebrew as the nations’ treasures (BSB, WEB, ASV). The cornerstone is Isaiah 28:16 (Isaiah 28), and Ephesians 2 joins both images: Christ “hath made both one”, Jew and Gentile, and is “the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:14, 20). The “slime” is the old English for the clay of Genesis 2:7, which the Douay–Rheims renders “the slime of the earth” (Genesis 2).
December 23 — O Emmanuel (O God with us)
Latin: O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et salvator earum; veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.English: O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Expectation and Saviour of the nations! come and save us, O Lord our God!
Emmanuel is the child’s name in Isaiah 7:14 (Isaiah 7), which Matthew explains: “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). “King and Lawgiver” returns to Isaiah 33:22 from O Adonai. “Expectation of the nations” follows the Latin of Genesis 49:10; the Douay–Rheims ends the verse with Judah’s coming ruler as the Expectation of the Gentiles, where the KJV reads “unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Genesis 49:10, Douay–Rheims; KJV). The series ends where Christmas begins: God himself comes to save.
Ero cras: the hidden answer
Take the first letter of each title after the “O”, from the last day back to the first: Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia. They spell ERO CRAS, Latin for “I will be [there] tomorrow”. On December 23 the seven pleas of “Come!” receive, read backwards, a reply for Christmas Eve.
The letters are easy to check, but no source we could check shows that the authors arranged them on purpose. Westminster Abbey, which sings the antiphons at Evensong from December 17 to 23, also leaves open whether the acrostic was meant. Either way, the reversed letters make a fitting answer to a week of waiting.
From the antiphons to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
The best-known Advent hymn in English grew out of these texts. The Latin hymn Veni, veni, Emmanuel turns five of the antiphons into rhymed verses with a refrain. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 notes that John Mason Neale thought it twelfth-century, but that it had “not been traced back further than the first decade of the eighteenth century”.
Neale published his English version in Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (London, 1851). His note calls the hymn “little more than a versification of some of the Christmas antiphons commonly called the O’s”, and it opens:
Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel, And loose Thy captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear! Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel Is born for thee, O Israel!
Its five verses follow O Emmanuel, O Radix Jesse, O Oriens, O Clavis David and O Adonai. Ten years later the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) printed a reworded text as Hymn 36, with the opening familiar today: “O come, O come, Emmanuel, / And ransom captive Israel”. Both printings are in the public domain.
Praying them this Advent
Read one antiphon each evening from December 17, slowly, then open one of its passages and read the chapter around it. The site’s Advent readings give one short passage a day from November 29 to Christmas; two of the days in this week pair well with the antiphons: Isaiah 9:2–7 on December 18, and Matthew 1:18–23, the Emmanuel promise, on December 19.