Lyrics
There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.
We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.
He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by His precious blood.
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in.
O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
Public domain hymn text (1848). Words by Cecil Frances Alexander.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Cecil Frances Alexander is already discussed elsewhere in this collection as author of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. She wrote this hymn’s text as part of the same 1848 collection, ‘Hymns for Little Children,’ continuing her broader project of teaching Christian doctrine to young readers through simple, concrete verse.
This time, she intended the hymn as a child-accessible explanation of the creed’s line concerning Christ’s crucifixion ‘under Pontius Pilate.’
The hymn’s opening image locates the crucifixion on an unnamed ‘green hill far away.’ That is a deliberate simplification, rather than a claim of precise geographic knowledge.
Alexander’s own son later explained that she had written the line specifically to help young English children, who had likely never seen any hill resembling the rocky, largely bare terrain of first-century Jerusalem, picture the crucifixion using the familiar green hills of the English countryside instead. She prioritized emotional and imaginative accessibility for her young audience, over strict topographical accuracy.
The hymn’s second verse contains an unusually honest admission for a work intended to teach settled doctrine to children: ‘we may not know, we cannot tell, what pains He had to bear.’
It acknowledges directly that the full nature of Christ’s suffering exceeds what any hymn, or any child, can fully grasp or explain — a moment of genuine theological humility within a text otherwise focused on straightforward instruction.
The hymn has remained widely used specifically within children’s and Sunday school settings for Good Friday and Holy Week observance.
Its simple, deliberately unadorned language continues to serve the same basic pedagogical purpose Alexander originally intended for it, nearly two centuries ago.
