The Diamond of Biblical Praise
The Diamond of Biblical Praise
“The area of ancient Israel’s greatest creativity, and so what they did best, was the praise of God.” (Ellen Davis, Getting involved with God).
“I will raise You up high, Elohim, Lord King; And I will bless Your name on bended knee forever and ever. Every day I will kneel down in adoration, and I will rave about Your name forever and ever, celebrating You to the point of looking foolish! Great is the Lord Yahweh, and highly to be praised, raising our arms with loud jubilation! His greatness is unsearchable, beyond discovery. One generation shall loudly exult You in praise to another, and shall boldly stand in the front of the line to declare Your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wonderful works, I will quietly utter my meditations.” (Psalm 145:1-4, Praise-Words by David).
Scripture doesn’t define the word “praise,” but it offers plenty of descriptions and numerous praise-words. Praise can be described as an outward expression of gratitude for all that God has done for oneself, for the community, for the world. Praise is a recounting of the many blessings that God has provided in His grace and mercy. Praise is a grateful appreciation of God’s mighty works. Praise is an expression of thanksgiving to the Lord, an acknowledgement of God’s righteous deeds. To praise God is to thank God and celebrate His presence in the world.
Praise is what we were created to do, it is the chief of our ultimate satisfactions, and we won’t find personal fulfillment unless we develop the habit of forgetting ourselves and praising God. Most of us Christian believers are not following in the footsteps of our Jewish brethren and praising God with an inspired creativity. The fact is, the Hebrew Bible reveals a vocabulary of praise that will help us in our bid to be more expressive of our praise, more imaginative, more creative. The Hebrew Bible reveals praise to be a diamond with an almost uncountable number of facets. There are many words in Scripture that may translate as praise, but the reality is praise has an abundance of angles and facets and dimensions that we need to learn if we want to mature in our praise of God. The Hebrew language is loaded with words that contain the element of praise but with added qualities that expands our view of what praise could mean to us in our walk of faith. Knowing these words will help us to participate more fully and deeply in praising our God, in expressing our thanksgiving to Him in every way humanly possible. “Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim Thy praise (tehillah, see below).” (Psalm 51:15 )
Praising God involves all of us, not just our intellect to think with or our bottoms to sit on. Praise and worship in the Jewish tradition is a physical experience as well as spiritual, with lots of meaningful postures and gestures, singing, multisensory, thoughtful yet expressive. Praise and worship in the Hebrew Bible invariably incorporated music and melody and instrumentation. Praise is not a spectator sport, but one that asks for full participation. As Dwight Pryor once said, “Praise is not afraid of feelings, but they are not based on feelings. If praise were a train, the engine that needs to constantly be stoked is God-focus and self-forgetfulness, and the emotional feelings are basically the caboose… still a part of things, but not what’s running the train.”
Praise is our exhale of gratitude and devotion after our inhale of God’s inspired presence. God initiates, we respond. So praising God is like our respiratory system, and unless we are breathing in God and then breathing out praise, we will spiritually expire. If we don’t learn how to respond to God’s goodness with heartfelt praise, our faith will soon become lifeless. Consider this category of “The Diamond of Praise” in the blog to be my meager attempt to polish each facet on this sparkling diamond. Each Hebrew word in this expanded vocabulary of praise will convey a different aspect of praise, and is intended to help us be more creative in our praise, more expressive, more biblical.
Being Physical with Praise. The spiritual and the physical belong together, and are in fact inseparable. We were created as whole beings with a mysterious fusion of body and spirit and soul and body and everything else that constitutes our personhood. Not only that, the Incarnation reveals how important the body is to Creator God. In a sense, the idea, the reality, of God taking on a physical body was actually a spiritual act. We need to make sure we incarnate our worship. So worship of our Creator needs to include the body if we want to worship with our whole selves. Physical acts of worship become meaningless if it is done thoughtlessly, without its intention of worshipping God. But worship is not limited to the nonphysical, the so-called spiritual either, or one is not truly involved fully in the act of worship. As Rev. Josef Ratzinger once wrote in his excellent article, The Theology of Kneeling, “The bodily gesture itself is the bearer of the spiritual meaning, which is worship. Without the heart of worship, the bodily gesture would be meaningless, while the spiritual act itself must of its very nature express itself in the bodily gestures.” So physical gestures are invaluable in the act of worship. They can point to spiritual truths, they can stimulate worshipful acts, and they can enable a fuller expression of awe, lament, adoration and worship. Using the body helps us to put the Gospel message into motion. The movement of one’s body can be a sign that communicates a message… Do you want to signal to God that you submit to Him, that you want to confess to Him, that you adore Him, that you intend to follow Him in trust? There are gestures and postures and movements that can express what is on your heart without any use of words. Body language is vital to spiritual life and expression. In this blog series entitled “Physical Worship,” I will focus on the worshipful use of the body through such gestures and movements as: prostration before God; sitting at the feet of Jesus; standing in respect and oneness; kneeling in submission; walking in order to follow; running the good race; jumping for joy; lifting up the heart and hands; offering the kiss of peace; and the act of crossing oneself with the sign of the Cross. This is important: Physical postures and actions during worship reflect the attitudes of the heart, but they can also help produce the attitudes of the heart.
Various Facets of the Diamond of Biblical Praise:
Hallel (halal): Exuberant praise; praise that raves about God; exclaiming wonderful words about God with raised arms; to celebrate wildly; to sing out with loud jubilation; to express praise almost to the point of looking foolish; an invitation to a more uninhibited style of worship, such as dancing, jumping and twirling. The root word for “hallelujah” is hallel, and it means “Praise the Lord!” Hallelujah tends to be a more spontaneous outburst of praise and exultation. (is used 165 times in Hebrew Bible, including Ps. 150).
Tehillah: From the root word hallel, meaning exuberant singing of a new song, a spontaneous melody of praise and thanksgiving. It is often used for the formal name of a psalm. (Psalm 51:15).
Hosannah: Both a petition and a praise… “Save us now! And we praise you for saving us!” “Please help us, and thank you for helping us!” “Save us from a narrow and confined existence, and we praise you for delivering us into a wide open space!” The early Hebrew root is Hoshiana, which means salvation. It evolved into a praise and petition before the time of Jesus. (Psalm 118:25-27; Matthew 21:9).
Ruwa: To shout joyfully; to make a joyful noise in praise; to split the ears with shouts of praise; to praise God at the top of our lungs; to shout a battle cry, as in Joshua’s army while marching around Jericho (Josh. 6:2); to raise one’s voice in loud celebration of God’s goodness. The ruwa shout was often used in the prophet’s announcements of the redemption experienced in the coming of the messianic age. (Psalm 100:1-2; Isaiah 44:23; Zeph. 3:14-15).
Yadah: Praising God with one’s hands up in the air; literally to give to God your hands in praise. A related term is “Towdah,” which means to reach out in praise to God much like a child reaching out to his parents. Yadah is usually with full choir in worship. The name Judah is another form of Yadah, and means Praise. Jesus comes from the line of Judah, and so was a Lion of Praise. (Genesis 29:35; 1 Chron. 16:34; Psalm 50:14; Isaiah 51:3).
Shachach: To bow down in adoration and praise; to deeply stoop down, possibly falling flat on the ground in reverence; the full “shachach” is to prostrate oneself fully on the ground in submission and humility before God. Two Greek words in the New Testament, “Pipto” and “Proskuneo,” mean much the same thing… falling flat on the ground in reverence and earnest prayer. For example, Jesus “pipto’d” in the Garden of Gethsemane in His Abba prayer. (Psalm 96:7-9; Psalm 95:6; Matthew 17:6; Mark 14: 33-36).
Nasah: To lift up one’s whole being before the Lord in praise, such as lifting up one’s heart, hands, voice, eyes and soul. (Psalm 25:1).
Giyl: To spin around in joyful praise; to greatly rejoice; to be exceedingly glad; to jump for joy. (Psalm 9:13-14; 2:11; 13:5-6; 1 Chron. 16:30-33).
Shabach: To very loudly exult in praise; to laud and honor the Lord in full voice; as one writer put it, to “raise a holy roar.” This term was also used to give a victory shout in triumph over an enemy. (Psalm 117:1-2; 63:3; 147:11-13).
Barakh: To bless on bended knee; to kneel down while blessing and adoring God; kneeling down low to raise God high; literally, to “knee God.” The related term “kara” means to sink down on our knees in reverence and awe. (is used 330 times in Hebrew Bible, including Psalm 103; 100:4-5; 95;6; Isaiah 45:22-33).
Dumiyah: To offer a speechless reverence; to thoughtfully praise God in and with silence; a quiet submission to God, silently praising Him without words. (Psalm 65:1).
Gadol and Kabod: Hebrew synonyms that mean to magnify, to praise, to glorify; to enlarge God’s presence in the world through praise and thanksgiving; to promote God and make Him greater in His worthiness; to reveal His weighty substance, His spiritual girth, and His glorious essence. (Psalm 40:16; 69:30; Psalm 22:23; 86:12-13).
Macha: To invite nature, all of God’s creation, to clap their hands, to strike their hands together in praise of their Maker. (only in Ps. 98:8 and Isaiah 55:12).
Zamar: A call to praise God with stringed instruments; to celebrate God’s presence and goodness with music; to express adoration of God through music, particularly with voice accompanied by stringed instruments. (is used 45 times in Hebrew Bible, including Psalm 7:17; 9:2 and 11; 18:49)
Machol: To dance in praise and worship; used especially in a liturgical circle dance with other worshipers. The shortened form is “hul,” which means to dance with much physical movement and exuberance, such as twirling, whirling, jumping; a holy movement with the worshiper’s body as a physical expression of joy and celebration, even reverence. (Psalm 150; Psalm 149:1-3).
Niggun: A distinctive of Hebrew worship in which a non-lingual song with a melody is sung to express the heart of the singer; a form of wordless vocal praise and worship that repeats “nonsense” syllables to a melody. A niggun has been described as “a musical path to God that transcends the limitations of language.” Early Christian worshipers continued the niggun, calling it “jubilus.” For the Christians it was spontaneous praise without lyrics, using repetitive nonwords, primarily focusing on the last syllable of a praise word like “hallelujah.” (in modern era, is a central part of Hasidic worship).
With the Hebrews, Praise was an Art Form: exuberant with raised arms; exultation accompanied by holy dance; spontaneous songs sung during worship; combining a petition with a praise in the same breath; making a joyful noise with a loud shout of celebration; praise with hands lifted up high in the air and arms extended; bowing low in adoration; lifting up one’s whole being to God in praise, including heart, hands, voice, eyes, soul; spin around in joy and praise; jump for joy; to declare praise very loudly like a roaring lion; bless God on bended knee, praising Him humbly while kneeling; to allow silence itself to praise God, blessing Him in reverence without exclamations but with soft murmuring; magnify and glorify God in praise by raving about His greatness and spiritual weight; to invite all of nature to join you in praise and worship; praise with music, celebrating in song with voice and/or stringed instruments; to enjoy a circle dance with other worshipers, as well as the more spontaneous whirling and twirling in the spirit.
As Dr. Ellen Davis said, praise is what the ancient Israelites did best. How about contemporary Christians?
Let’s remember that there are an unending number of ways to praise God and give Him the glory. “It is not only prayer that gives God glory, but work. Smiting an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses… To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a slop pail, give Him glory too. God is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean they should.” (from a sermon by Gerard Manley Hopkins).