Joy To The World (Unspeakable Joy)

Chris Tomlin keeps Isaac Watts's text unaltered through its familiar verses before adding a chorus built entirely around a word that admits its own limits — 'unspeakable.' 1 Peter 1:8's description of believers who, though they haven't seen Christ, 'rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory' is the direct source of that language, naming a joy too large to be fully put into words even while the song keeps trying anyway.

'An overflowing well, no tongue can tell' extends that same admission — the well image suggests abundance beyond what can be drawn out or described, not a fixed, containable amount. 'Rises in my soul, never lets me go' keeps the joy from being a single peak experience; it's framed as something ongoing and involuntary, closer to Romans 15:13's picture of 'the God of hope' filling believers with joy that overflows into hope, rather than a feeling that has to be worked up or maintained by effort.