O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel.

These lines open the well-known Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” associated in English with the Anglican priest and hymn translator John Mason Neale (1818–1866). Neale’s text is not an original English poem but a translation/adaptation of medieval Latin “O Antiphons” (beginning “Veni, veni Emmanuel”), ancient liturgical refrains traditionally sung in the days leading up to Christmas. Neale published his English version in the mid-19th century amid renewed Victorian interest in early Christian and medieval liturgy. The hymn’s imagery—Israel in exile, longing for deliverance—frames Advent as a season of waiting for the Messiah’s coming.

The speaker pleads for Emmanuel (“God with us”) to come and “ransom” Israel, casting salvation in the language of captivity and liberation. “Captive Israel” evokes biblical exile and, more broadly, humanity’s bondage to sin, sorrow, and death; the hoped-for arrival of Christ is imagined as a decisive act of rescue. The repeated “O come” intensifies the sense of yearning characteristic of Advent: a tension between present suffering and promised redemption. By using Israel as the representative people of God, the hymn links Christian expectation to Jewish scriptural history, presenting the Incarnation as the fulfillment of long-standing prophetic hope.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.