{"id":117286,"date":"2026-10-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117286"},"modified":"2026-09-29T13:14:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:14:39","slug":"holy-holy-holy-lyrics-meaning-trinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/holy-holy-holy-lyrics-meaning-trinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy, Holy, Holy: Lyrics, Meaning, and Why the Word Is Said Three Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>5 Minute, 8 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n<p>There is one thing said about God three times in a row in Scripture, and this hymn is built on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not loving, loving, loving. Not mighty, mighty, mighty. <em>Holy, holy, holy<\/em> \u2014 in Isaiah 6 and again in Revelation 4. Reginald Heber took that and wrote a hymn for one specific Sunday of the year, and it outlived him by two centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Listen: Holy, Holy, Holy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Holy, Holy, Holy | Traditional Gospel Hymn with Lyrics\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f7QKVVNiedI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Holy, Holy, Holy \u2014 Full Lyrics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Verse 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!<br>Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;<br>Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!<br>God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Verse 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,<br>Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;<br>Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,<br>Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Verse 3<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!<br>All Thy works shall praise Thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;<br>Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!<br>God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why the word is said three times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Biblical Hebrew has no word for &#8220;most&#8221; or &#8220;-est&#8221;. To say something is the greatest of its kind, you repeat it. &#8220;Vanity of vanities&#8221; in Ecclesiastes means the emptiest possible emptiness. &#8220;King of kings&#8221; means the highest king there is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Repeating a word twice was the ordinary superlative. Repeating it three times was reserved, and in Scripture it happens to exactly one attribute of God. The seraphim in Isaiah 6:3 do not cry &#8220;loving, loving, loving&#8221; or &#8220;just, just, just.&#8221; They cry <em>holy, holy, holy<\/em>. The same words appear again in Revelation 4:8, which is where Heber&#8217;s second verse gets its crowns and its glassy sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the hymn&#8217;s title is not a poetic flourish. It is the strongest statement the original language could make, and it is made about one quality and no other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be&#8221;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Three tenses in one line: <em>wert<\/em> is the old second-person past of &#8220;to be&#8221; \u2014 you were. <em>Art<\/em> \u2014 you are. <em>Evermore shalt be<\/em> \u2014 you will be, without end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the hymn&#8217;s quiet answer to its own opening. Everything else in verse two is in motion \u2014 saints casting down crowns, cherubim and seraphim falling. The only still thing in the picture is the one they are falling before, and the line says so by refusing to leave any tense out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A hymn written for one Sunday<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Reginald Heber was an Anglican clergyman who wanted hymns that followed the church year \u2014 a Sunday-by-Sunday set, each matched to what was being read. That was a more radical idea than it sounds. English parish churches of the early 1800s mostly sang metrical psalms, and freely composed hymns were viewed with suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He wrote this one for <strong>Trinity Sunday<\/strong>, which is why every verse names the Trinity outright. Heber was made Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and died in India three years later, aged 42. His hymns were published the following year by his widow. He never heard this one sung to the tune everyone now knows \u2014 John Dykes wrote NICAEA in 1861, thirty-five years after Heber&#8217;s death, and named it after the Council of Nicaea, the gathering that had settled the doctrine the hymn celebrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About this recording<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The recording above is our own traditional gospel arrangement of Heber&#8217;s public-domain text, produced with AI-assisted music generation. The words are unchanged. The setting is new, so if you grew up singing NICAEA, this will sound like the hymn you know in different clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why is holy repeated three times in Holy, Holy, Holy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Biblical Hebrew forms superlatives by repetition rather than with a word like &#8220;most&#8221;. Doubling was the normal intensifier; tripling was rare and emphatic. In Scripture only one attribute of God is stated three times \u2014 holiness, in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8. The hymn&#8217;s title is therefore the strongest claim the language could make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who wrote Holy, Holy, Holy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The words were written by Reginald Heber, an Anglican bishop, around 1826, and published after his death. The tune NICAEA was composed by John Bacchus Dykes in 1861, thirty-five years later, and is named after the Council of Nicaea of AD 325.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is Holy, Holy, Holy in the public domain?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes. Heber&#8217;s text dates from 1826 and Dykes&#8217;s NICAEA tune from 1861, both far earlier than the 1930 US public-domain cutoff, so both may be printed, projected, sung and recorded freely. A specific modern arrangement can still carry its own copyright, so licence the arrangement rather than the hymn. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/f7QKVVNiedI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hear our public-domain arrangement here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Bible verse is Holy, Holy, Holy based on?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Revelation 4:8-11 is the main source \u2014 the living creatures crying &#8220;Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,&#8221; and the elders casting their crowns before the throne. Isaiah 6:3 supplies the same threefold cry from the seraphim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What does &#8220;wert&#8221; mean in the hymn?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Wert is the archaic second-person past tense of &#8220;to be&#8221; \u2014 you were. The line &#8220;which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be&#8221; runs past, present and future together: you were, you are, you always will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What are cherubim and seraphim?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Two orders of angelic beings. Seraphim appear in Isaiah 6 around the throne, each with six wings, calling the threefold &#8220;holy&#8221; to one another. Cherubim appear from Genesis onward, guarding and attending God&#8217;s presence. Both are plural Hebrew forms \u2014 one seraph, many seraphim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How many verses does Holy, Holy, Holy have?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Four in the original. Most services and recordings use three, and ours sings verses one, two and four. The verse usually left out begins &#8220;Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee, though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is Trinity Sunday?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The Sunday after Pentecost, set aside in the Western church calendar for the doctrine of the Trinity. 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status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[626],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117287,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117286\/revisions\/117287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}