O Little Town of Bethlehem
Phillips Brooks's hymn about the quiet night in Bethlehem and a prayer for Christ to be born in us.
The words are public domain. We print a hymn only after checking it word for word against a dated old printing, and this one hasn’t been checked yet. Hymnary has it now.
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” at HymnaryAbout this hymn
The hymn pictures Bethlehem asleep on the night Jesus was born. It then prays that Christ will come into the lives of people now, forgive their sin and stay with them.
It rests on Micah 5:2, which names Bethlehem as the place a ruler would come from, and on Matthew 2:1-6 and Luke 2:1-7, which tell of Jesus' birth there.
It is sung at Christmas. Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal priest in Philadelphia, wrote it in 1868 after visiting Bethlehem, and his organist Lewis Redner wrote the tune.
For musicians and planners
| Words | Phillips Brooks, 1868 | Public domain |
|---|---|---|
| Tune | ST. LOUIS · Lewis H. Redner, 1868 | Public domain |
Checked 2026-09-27 against hymnary.org text, tune and person pages (attribution and rights only). The words are not transcribed here yet.
Hymn numbers checked against Hymnary.org’s index of Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Full record: Hymnary.