Launching this blog on New Year’s Day – that is, the eighth day of Christmas, also known as the feast of the circumsicion and naming of Jesus – we will begin with one of the most famous settings of biblical texts in music: Handel’s Messiah.

Specifically, our focus will be the Part 1 chorus ‘For unto us a child is born’ setting words from Isaiah Chapter 9, and consistently returning to the idea that ‘His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.’

This chorus is very much music of praise and acclamation – especially as a bright G Major takes over from the B minor of the previous movement (‘The people that walked in darkness’ sung by the Bass soloist).

I will leave to scholars of Isaiah the question of whether the text originally (whatever that means) referred to a child contemporary with the prophet, and which child that might have been; it is clear that Handel – and Charles Jennens who compiled the Biblical texts to make the libretto – in longstanding Christian tradition understood the text as Christological, and as referring to Jesus.

As a musicologist, one of the points of interest in this particular chorus is that the main musical theme was formed from pre-existing music, a secular duet illustrating a carnal intertwining of will and body, reimagined to convey the union of divine and human natures in the person of Christ. That Handel re-used his own music is not exceptional – indeed it is to be expected of a composer of his time – but the intertextual resonance gives a rawness to the corporeal aspect of the incarnation that is celebrated in the music.

Writing on Jesus’ name-day, however, it is also worth noting that the interjections, for chorus tutti, of ‘Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace’ appear to have been newly composed for the oratorio. These acclamations add a sense of awe to the joy implicit in the more intertwined lines of the re-used music.

As a theologian, the question that has been asked of me concerns translation of the text from Isaiah’s Hebrew: specifically that some modern versions treat ‘wonderful’ and ‘counsellor’ as separate ideas, imposing a comma between them; that is, that He is both wonderful and a counsellor, where others imply that they belong together, by not having a comma, thus suggesting that it is His activity as counsellor which is wonderful.

I am not going to claim to resolve the question, but to look a little at the language. The Hebrew פֶּלֶא (pele’) is a noun meaning ‘a wonder’ or ‘a marvel’ thus ‘a miracle’; יוֹעֵץ (yo’ets) is a verb, meaning to give advice, but in the form of a participle, enabling it to be used as a noun for one who gives advice or counsel. The question, then, is the relation between the two, and whether the ‘wonder’ is in the state called construct, putting the following participle into a genitive relationship, which we might interpret as a ‘miracle of advice-giving’, thus an ‘advice-giving miracle’ or ‘wonderous counsellor’, or whether they are stand alone attributes. This remains an open question, as far as I can tell, but it might be worth noting that the other titles in the list are much more securely translated as two-word ideas: אֵל גִּבּוֹר (‘El gibor) mighty God, אֲבִי עַד  (Avi ‘ad) everlasting father, and שַׂר־שָׁלוֹם (Sar-Shalom) Prince of peace.

Does all of this add up to anything very significant? We have a musical intertwining of lines illustrating the incarnation, with a reference to the very corporeality of that mystery; we have an added acclamation of praise to the incarnate God; and we have a prophecy which, applied as Christological, shows that the incarnate one is Himself a miracle of advice giving. As a musical representation of the central mystery of the Christmas season, it does have some depth worthy of reflection.