Lyrics
Hark, the glad sound! The Savior comes,
The Savior promised long;
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.
On Him the Spirit, largely poured,
Exerts its sacred fire;
Wisdom and might, and zeal and love,
His holy breast inspire.
He comes the prisoners to release,
In Satan's bondage held;
The gates of brass before Him burst,
The iron fetters yield.
He comes from thickest films of vice
To clear the mental ray,
And on the eyeballs of the blind
To pour celestial day.
He comes the broken heart to bind,
The bleeding soul to cure;
And with the treasures of His grace
To enrich the humble poor.
His silver trumpets publish loud
The jubilee of the Lord;
Our debts are all remitted now,
Our heritage restored.
Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And Heaven's eternal arches ring
With Thy beloved name.
Public domain hymn text (1735). Words by Philip Doddridge.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Philip Doddridge, an English Nonconformist minister and hymn writer, wrote 'Hark, the Glad Sound! The Savior Comes' in 1735 as a sermon hymn, intended to be sung as part of a specific sermon on Luke 4:18-19, in which Jesus reads from Isaiah in the synagogue and applies its language of release and healing directly to His own ministry.
Doddridge frequently composed hymns to accompany his sermons rather than to stand alone, and this text closely follows the structure of that particular Isaiah passage, moving through its promises of freedom for prisoners, healing for the broken, and provision for the poor almost line by line.
Its imagery, 'gates of brass' bursting and 'iron fetters' yielding, draws on ancient descriptions of literal prison architecture, giving Christ's spiritual deliverance a concrete, almost violent physical shape rather than describing it only in abstract terms.
Though written specifically for Advent use, anticipating 'the Savior promised long,' the hymn's central content, describing what Christ's coming actually accomplishes, points as much to His active ministry as to His birth, making it usable across a wider liturgical range than purely Nativity-focused Advent hymns.
Doddridge, who also ran a dissenting academy training ministers outside the Church of England, wrote hundreds of hymns during his lifetime, though most, including this one, were not published until after his death, compiled and released by his friend Job Orton.
The hymn's closing image, enriching 'the humble poor' with 'the treasures of His grace,' reverses the ordinary flow of wealth and status, picturing the gospel's benefit as flowing specifically toward those with the least, rather than toward the powerful or accomplished.
It remained a standard Advent hymn across English-speaking Protestant hymnals for centuries, valued for grounding the anticipation of Christ's coming directly in Isaiah's own concrete language of prisoners freed and the poor made rich.
