Psalms 2:11: “Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
Do you realize there are over 16 words in the Hebrew for rejoice or joy. How many words do we have in English for joy? Whatever is important in a culture is reflected in the language. Perhaps joy is just not important in our culture.
There are many different types of joy. Just a sample of Hebrew joy:
Simchah – The Joy of the Lord
Samach – Joy in performing religious ceremony
Samerch – Joy that shows outward expression
Suws – An inward feeling of joy, not expressed
Sachaq – Joy that comes from playing
Tsahal – Joy in the success of someone else.
Alats – Joy in victory
Chadah – A re-joice. A renewal of joy
Masows – Joy in being with friends or family
Ranah – Shouting for joy.
Gil – Joy expressed in spinning around in a circle
So which rejoice does David use in Psalms 2:11? It is gil. David seemed to love spinning around in a circle. Actually, the word gil is also used for generations. You know, generations have the idea of moving around in a circle. Young becomes old and the old dies off the new young take over and they become old and the cycle continues. Perhaps David is saying we should approach old age with trembling? Maybe not.
The word trembling is bire’adah. When you trace this word to its Semitic origin you find it is the word ra. In Hebrew you have about ten different words that have a Semitic root of ra which is your basic word for evil. Actually, that is not quite right. Evil to us is always something bad. Ra does not necessarily have to be bad. The Semitic concept of Ra is an outside influence causing us to react a certain way in which we have little or no control over our actions.
This particular ra word is the word ra’ad. It does indeed mean to tremble, but this trembling is the result of being in awe. That could be either good or bad. We could stand in awe at the strength and power of an invading army. The word found here in Psalms 2:11 is in a feminine form, thus ra’adah would have the idea of trembling before something beautiful. The sages suggest that this is a trembling when in the presence of something with awesome beauty. It is so beautiful you actually begin to quake. The best picture I can think of for this expression rejoice with trembling is the opening scene in the Sound of Music where you see Julie Andrews singing the opening score while spinning around on the top of the Austrian mountains. I believe this is the same picture of David who would spin around gil in the midst of the beauty of God’s creation when he was a shepherd and would be off alone with his sheep. He would be so taken with the beauty of God’s creation that he would just spin around gil in the midst of the beauty ra’adah praising gil God.
Now here is the context, David is speaking to kings and judges. He is addressing leaders, people who have great responsibility. Just as a pastor is a leader who has a responsibility to his or her congregation. David is saying to these leaders, serve the Lord with fear. The word fear here is yara’ which is a fear for the welfare of someone or something other than yourself. In other words serve the Lord with the fear that you may do something that which would offend God or wound His heart. Yet, while you are concentrating on protecting God’s heart, take some time off to go to the mountains alone and bask in the beauty of God’s creation and just spin around like a little child praising God.
You know, Julie Andrew’s character in the Sound of Music was always getting into trouble with convent as she would neglect her religious duties to go off to the mountains and rejoice with trembling. Too many Christians are very good at fulfilling the first part of this verse in fearing God. They will exhaust themselves in performing their religious duties to protect the heart of God and bring joy and pleasure to the heart of God but they will totally overlook the second part of this verse which instructs us to rejoice with trembling, that is to go off alone into God’s creation and just absorb the awe and beauty of what God created and then just spin around like a little child, rejoicing and dancing with God.
There are too many of us who are great Cinderella’s who spend all our time serving others, scrubbing the cinders off the walls and floors when our Prince is standing at the door saying, “Forget trying to clean all that soot for a while and come over to my palace and let’s dance.” Sure God wants us out there bringing His message of love and cleansing power of His blood, but He also wants us to take a little time and put down those scrubbing tools to just dance with Him. Dancing and rejoicing with Jesus in the beauty of His creation brings just as much joy to Him as performing our religious duties.
something else comes to mind. we look at the psalms as being originated by David, i am finding that the Psalms are the words of our Lord spoken by David under the power of the Holy Spirit. so i have begun to look at each psalm and identify it as being spoken by the Lord Jesus.
some years have passed since i came while reading/ studying the scriptures i came to Luke 10:21. and at that time became and interesting action, Jesus rejoicing, so i went to do some search and came to the word 0021 agalliao {ag-al-lee-ah’-o}and in my search i became fascinated with the phrase and the following was my finding about the word rejoiced. “For in that hour Jesus leaped up, jumped up with joy and said `I fully agree, O Father, Ruler of heaven and earth, in that you have hid these things from men of understanding, learned, intelligent and exercise sound judgement in practical matters; but have lay them open before the “new born”, the unlearned: yes, Father; for in this your choice, you have found delight, and satisfaction.”
agalliaw: to celebrate, praise equivalent to agalliiaomi to desire ardently. thank you it was one of the first words that caught my eye and led me to find out, all of the sudden i read it again, and i could see Jesus, rejoicing. jumping up in the air, spinning around and falling back to the ground with and open laughter. Victor