Joy to the World

The tune known as Antioch, to which this carol is sung, was published by Lowell Mason in 1836 in Occasional Psalm and Hymn Tunes with the ascription From Handel, and revised by him in 1848; Mason's later version is the one still used. The words are older and were not written for Christmas: Isaac Watts published them in 1719 as a paraphrase of Psalm 98, concerned with Christ's kingdom rather than his nativity. Mason's collection was the first to bring text and tune together. Scholars now treat the resemblance to Messiah as coincidental.