What I am going to share with you in this post completely transformed the way I worship!
Part 1 of this 2 part post covered 4 Hebrew words that merely scratch the surface of what worship from God’s people looked like in the Bible. Feel free to go back and check it out here as a refresher.
I’d like to start out by sharing why I think this is an important exercise for us to do.
- God cares how we worship. Yes, he cares about the posture of our hearts, but he also cares about the manner in which we worship, the content we use in worship, and even the physical expressions we use in worship.
- God’s people are permitted to be expressive in worship. This was huge for me to learn. Imagine growing up being taught that God only wants us to stand perfectly still and avoid any sort of “emotionalism”. Uh, if we weren’t supposed to be stirred emotionally, why are we even using music?!
- People need our help. As worship leaders, if we don’t model, how do they know they’re allowed or encouraged to do something? A congregation will typically never go any further in expressiveness than what they see from the platform. And most of the time, they’ll actually be many steps behind.
Ok, are you ready? Here are the remaining Hebrew words used in the Bible for praise/worship:
Yadah – to raise your hands in worship; to shoot or cast an arrow into the sky
Yadah is a word that holds a special place in my heart, and… forearm. I have the word Yadah tattooed on my arm on the stem of an arrow that is pointing to my hand. I once preached on the word Yadah, using Psalm 67, and to commemorate that lesson I learned in order to teach, I had it tattooed on my arm. It is meant to serve as a reminder to me that just like someone might cast an arrow into the sky, I am moved to raise my hands in joyful, exuberant celebration of who God is and what he’s done! Yadah shows up over 100 times in the Old Testament, which goes to show that raising hands in worship was common for the people of God, and still out to be today. It’s a natural reaction for so many of us when we are extremely excited about something! What could possibly excite us more than the hope we have in Christ?!
Towdah – thanksgiving; to extend the hands in confession or praise
Towdah is also about what we do with our hands in worship. Tim Hawkins has a great comedy routine on all the different things people do with their hands in worship, btw. Check it out sometime! Towdah first shows up in Leviticus when God is instruction Israel for how to bring a thank offering to him. The word differs from Yadah in a few ways. Yadah is meant to be a celebratory raising of hands, but Towdah is a reverent offering of our hands. Yadah is shooting our hands up into the sky like an arrow, but Towdah likely has a bit more reluctance or trepidation. It’s about saying, “here it is God, I bring it to you”, regardless of what “it” is. Here’s my doubt, here’s my sin, here’s my offering… it’s a posture of surrender. It is often used in Psalms of confession, where the psalmist confesses sin, fear, or doubt. We extend our hands to say thank you, but also to say, “please take this”, whether it be a gift we are offering, or a burden we need lifted from us.
Halal – to boast, to praise, to be clamorously foolish
Psalm 150 concludes with using the word Halal when it says “let everything that has breath Halal the Lord!” It is also used to in the context of David’s “undignified” worship of God as he danced before the Lord at the parade of the Ark of the Covenant. I know what many are thinking when they see “clamorously foolish” in the definition. “But isn’t that irreverent?!” Or even “I don’t want to look silly!” To the latter I say, we need to get over ourselves at times :). What other people think of how we look shouldn’t sway us from worshiping God in ways he prompts us to worship him. As to the former, what a delicate topic. Are there foolish looking gestures that are inappropriate? Oh yeah. Absolutely. We know what many of them are. But are their foolish looking expressions that can be worshipful? Well, according to the Psalms, apparently so. When we speak of appropriateness, we typically will refer to the occasion or environment we find ourselves in. Would it be appropriate for me to hoot and holler when someone is in the middle of serving the ball at the US Open Tennis Tournament? No. But the same hooting and hollering might be totally appropriate and permissible in response to the end of the point they just finished in the same match. God created us with the natural desire and inclination to express our excitement in ways that might look foolish. I’m a big Philadelphia sports fan. The Eagles play in the Super Bowl this Sunday evening. There is a possible chance I’ll be doing more than a golf clap and the occasional “mmm… well done gentlemen…” One might say I look pretty foolish in my celebration of their successes in the context of a football game. No one looks at me like I’m doing something wicked or inappropriate in that context. And no one had to instruct me to respond that way. It comes quite naturally. How often does that come naturally to us when we worship? How many of our people are feeling that way and just need to be told or shown that God accepts such expressions in our worship?
Barak – kneeling or bowing down in praise
Similar to last week’s word, Shachah, Barak refers to a posture of humility by bowing, kneeling, laying prostrate before God in worship. Where Shachah refers to the totality of worship, Barak intentionally speaks to the physical expression within our explicit corporate or personal worship practices. It is fairly common in highly liturgical churches to find a prayer bench attached to the back of each pew. I’d say this is something that perhaps they are getting right in such places. This is not to say that we are getting it wrong if we don’t have a prayer bench, but more to say that the existence of one certainly speaks to whether the place of worship deems it appropriate, encourages it, or even at times mandates/expects it. For me, this shows up most often in my personal worship life, but seldom in corporate worship unless I am attempting to teach this posture specifically and help us all experience unity and even comfortability in such an expression collectively. There are times and places that this may not be helpful in leading worship, but I personally am always moved when I see someone in the congregation worshiping God from this physical position. I’d even say that this expression is something that we could use more of in our corporate worship services, because not only does it honor God, but it reminds us of the humility we should have before God and the hopelessness we would be lost in without Him.
Shabach – to shout, to address in a loud tone, to declare triumph, to command
Our worship songs catalogue at the church I get to serve at is labeled with 1 of 4 tags: Invitation, Declaration, Response, Encounter. The place Shabach would most readily show up would be in songs of Declaration. There are occasions when I am leading worship where I might say “declare this together” or even “shout this out”. When I prompt this, Shabach is what I’m referring to. Shouting out a truth about God or what he has done both indicates and invites a level of conviction about our level of belief. Songs that are declarative can often be horizontal in nature, using words such as “he”, “him” rather than vertical in nature addressing God directly with the word “you”. If we are declaring a truth about God as opposed to directly praising him directly for it, how helpful might it be to those we are declaring it with or for if we do it loudly or confidently? How might it help those of us who are shouting that truth? In Psalm 63, David declares “Your (God) love is better than life! I will shabach you as long as I live…” I’m so convinced that nothing compares to God’s love that I want to shout it from the mountaintops so that all might know and experience his love!
There we have it, folks. In total, 9 Hebrew words used in the Bible for praise or worship. But what will we do with it? How will we reveal it and encourage it for those God has called us to lead in worship? Sing! Play! Shout! Dance! Kneel! Bow down! Raise your hands! Make a fool of yourself! But in everything, do all to the glory of God! Our congregations are depending on us to help them experience freedom to be expressive in worship, and they might not even know it. Let’s lead them well!
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