THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.l
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
- I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
- They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
- I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
- His day is marching on.
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- His day is marching on.
- I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
- "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
- Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
- Since God is marching on."
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Since God is marching on.
- He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
- He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
- Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
- Our God is marching on.
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Our God is marching on.
- In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
- With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
- As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
- While God is marching on.
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- While God is marching on.
- He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
- He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
- So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
- Our God is marching on.
- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Our God is marching on.
Biblical references
The song alludes to several Biblical passages. The first verse draws on the Book of Revelation, which describes an angel casting grapes into "the great winepress of the wrath of God" (14:19), and later describes the Word of God who wields "a sharp sword" and "treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God" (19:15). The third verse refers to YHWH Elohim's (God's) statement in Genesis 3:15 that the woman's (Eve's) offspring will step on and bruise (or crush) the head of the serpent (and/or its seed), while the serpent will strike at his heel. Indirectly, this also refers to Revelation(Apocalypse in Catholic/Orthodox bibles) 12:1-10, where a woman (often interpreted as being The Blessed Virgin Mary and/or the newly formed Christian Church and/or the ancient Israel) bears a child while engaged in struggle with a dragon/serpent. The dragon/serpent is defeated. The fourth verse alludes to 2 Corinthians 5:10, which states that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." The fifth verse refers to the doctrine that Christians can be made holy through the death of Christ (Colossians 1:21-22). The sixth verse refers to the Earth as the footstool of God, a claim which appears in Isaiah 66:1, Matthew 5:35, and Acts 7:49.
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