"Joy to the World" is based on which book of the Bible?

“Joy to the World” is based on Psalm 98. English hymn writer Isaac Watts adapted the psalm in 1719, presenting its celebration of God’s reign through a Christian interpretation centered on Christ’s coming.

Watts published the hymn as “The Messiah’s Coming and Kingdom” in his collection The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament. Its imagery of heaven and nature rejoicing reflects Psalm 98’s call for all creation to sing to the Lord. The third stanza also draws on Genesis 3, especially the end of sin’s curse, which is why the hymn is not a line-by-line translation of Psalm 98.

The familiar tune is “Antioch,” arranged by Lowell Mason in 1848 from music attributed to George Frideric Handel. That musical connection sometimes leads people to assume Handel wrote the entire carol, but Watts wrote the words and Mason prepared the widely used arrangement. Although now strongly associated with Christmas, the text originally celebrated Christ’s kingdom more broadly.