Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:

Psalms 13:6: “I will sing unto the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

In our culture we hear the word “bountiful” and we think of an abundance of food or money.  Who would not sing if he walked into a room full of money and food.  We really need to lay aside our culture and examine this through the eyes of David.  As a king David was rich  and had all the food he wanted.  I doubt very much when David wrote this he was thinking of his wealth and power.

This word “bountifully” is “gamal” which has the idea of  ripen fruits, or to bring to maturity.  The writer could be rejoicing over having come through many hardships to reach a level of  maturity.  He could be praising God for a certain problem or situation which has now reached a level of maturity which is able to bring it under control.

To express this joy, he will “sing” to the Lord.  This word for sing is “sur” which has a paragogic Hei.  It is also in a future tense. This will be a song that comes from the heart. It will be sung not for entertainment but  to praise God.  In fact, this word could also be rendered as praise.  There are many different words in the Hebrew that can be rendered as praise.  We do not have so many words for praise in English.  Maybe it is  not so much that praise is not important to us as we do not have as much variety in our praise and worship.  For many praise and worship is just singing a song and lifting our hands in a church service.  Yet, there are many many other forms of worship and praise “Sur” is just one of them.

“Sur” does not necessarily  have to involve a song,  it could be a poetic recitation. Mainly it has the idea of  the telling and retelling of a story.  Such retelling of a story tends to develop a certain type of cadence.  But this is a way of praising God. It is the sharing of a testimony.

In the process of being brought to spiritual maturity one will go through many trials, many situations where you will need to depend upon God and have your faith built.  One day you sit back and think about it and realize how much stronger your faith is, how closer you are to God.  It is at that point that you start to become grateful for all those mountains you had to climb and now with all the stories you have to tell, you can bring encouragement to others who are just beginning the journey.   You will have your own special song to sing.

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