When it is said
It closes Vespers, the evening service, every day, just before the prayer “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal”.
It also follows the prayers of thanksgiving after Holy Communion, in church or at home.
In Isabel Hapgood’s English service book of 1906, the deacon says it at the end of the Liturgy, as he puts the holy vessels away.
Western churches pray it at night prayer, called Compline, and at Evensong in the Church of England.
Where it comes from
Author known
Who was Simeon?
Luke’s Gospel tells of Simeon, a righteous and devout man in Jerusalem. He was waiting for God to comfort Israel, and the Holy Spirit had told him he would not die before he saw the Lord’s Christ. When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple, Simeon took Him in his arms. He blessed God and spoke these words.
Luke 2:25-32
What tradition adds
Many churches keep the day Simeon met Jesus on 2 February, 40 days after Christmas. The Orthodox call it the Meeting of the Lord. Orthodox tradition adds a story. Simeon was one of the seventy scholars who put the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. He doubted the prophet Isaiah’s word that a virgin would conceive. He was told he would live to see it, and was about 360 years old when he held Jesus.
Rachmaninoff’s farewell
The Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff set the Slavonic words for choir in his All-Night Vigil, first sung in Moscow in 1915. Its basses end on a famously low B-flat. Rachmaninoff asked for this movement to be sung at his funeral.
What the words mean
“Let Your servant go”
“Now You let Your servant go in peace” means “now let me die in peace”. Simeon had been promised he would not die before he saw the Christ, and now he had held Him. A note in the Russian book of hours says the prayer teaches us to keep the hour of our own death always in mind.
Luke 2:26; The Church Slavonic book of hours (Chasoslov), on Azbyka.ru
The Scripture in it
“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You now dismiss Your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to Your people Israel.”
He says: “It is not enough for You to be My Servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the protected ones of Israel. I will also make You a light for the nations, to bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.”
The LORD has bared His holy arm in the sight of all the nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Νῦν ἀπολύεις τὸν δοῦλόν Σου, Δέσποτα, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά Σου, ἐν εἰρήνῃ,
ὅτι εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριόν Σου, ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν,
φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ Σου Ἰσραήλ.