Reginald Heber wrote Holy, Holy, Holy for Trinity Sunday, and it reached print in 1826, around the end of a short life that left an outsized mark on Christian liturgy. He died at 42 in Calcutta.
The three-fold repetition of 'holy' echoes the seraphim in Isaiah 6, the creatures around God's throne who cry out the holiness of God. Heber's genius was to make theology singable: he takes the abstraction of Trinity, the unreasonable claim that God is three and one, and gives it a body so clear that a child can sing it and a theologian can rest in it.
The hymn ends with a question that hangs in the air: only the redeemed can glimpse God's holiness and live. Heber knew his theology and his craft; every line earns its place.
🧵 "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty"
Isaiah 6:3 · Revelation 4:8
🧵 "All the saints adore Thee, casting down ..."
Revelation 4:10
🧵 "Cherubim and seraphim falling down befor..."
Isaiah 6:2-3 · Revelation 1:4
🧵 "God in three persons, blessed Trinity"
1 John 5:7 · Matthew 28:19