RISE AND SHINE

THE PHRASE refers to the act of getting out of bed and preparing for work. The phrase was first used in a biblical reference, in Isaiah 60:1. King James Version, 1611, that read as: Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

The earliest examples of the phrase are clearly influenced by the Bible; for example, The Testimony of William Erbery, 1658, a book of religious observations directed ‘To the Christian Reader’: They [the Christian saints] shall so rise and shine, that the glory shall rise upon them.

The link to Isaiah 60:1 is even clearer in the use of the phrase in several Christian texts of the mid 17th century. For instance Robert Gell’s An Essay toward the Amendment of the last English-Translation of the Bible, 1659 and Thomas Douglas’s Jerubbaal: or, A Vindication of the Sober Testimony against Sinful Complyance, 1664.

The first non-religious uses, are references to the sun, as in this example from Maryland paper The Torch Light And Public Advertiser, February 1824:

Courage, child of Washington Though thy fate disastrous stems, We have seen the setting sun

Rise and shine with brighter beams.

The use of ‘rise and shine’ as a wake up call for soldiers inspires the present day usage. In that context ‘rise’ just means ‘rouse yourself’ and ‘shine’ derives from the shining of boots that soldiers were expected to do each morning.

When used in the British Army ‘rise and shine’ was, and still is, preceded by ‘wakey-wakey’. The term may not have originated in the British Army though - the first citation was in the 1916 U.S. Marine Corps Recruiters’ Bulletin: ‘He rapped at the door and in stentorian tones cried,’ ‘Rise and shine... Wiggle a toe.’