HEBREW WORD STUDY – SPEAK THE SONG   YEDAVAR HASHIRAH ידבר השירה Yod Daleth Beth Resh   Hei Shin Yod Resh Hei

Deteronomy 31:30:  “And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended.”

This is a curious verse.  It tells us Moses spoke the words of the song.  Why didn’t he sing them?  One reason might be the same reason I usually just speak the words of a song rather than sing them. When I sing dogs howl and the room quickly empties.  Here is Biblical proof Moses was not gifted with a musical voice.  Well, maybe there is another reason he did not sing this song to the congregation.  It wasn’t time to sing this song.

You see, this is Moses’s last message to the people of Israel that was being given to Him by God.  In Deuteronomy 31 God is telling Moses to tell the people of His faithfulness and blessings but then God abrutly announces that the people are stiff neck people and prophecies that not too far into the future they will not be faithful to Him. In verses 17 and 18 God says his anger will burn against his people and He will hide His face. In the English that sounds pretty brutal.  But in the Hebrew there are many alternative ways to render this as I have done in the past.  I will not go into the detail but I would render this more like God saying: “My grief will burn with my people (over the troubles that will come) and I will be forced to hide my presence from them.”  You see God created this world and us to be in perfect balance.  When we wander from God we fall off balance, God cannot protect us with his presence as He is holy and He cannot abide with unholiness.  So, he gave laws which if followed will keep us in balance with His creation and thus He can continue to show His presence.  If man breaks the laws, God is not angry any more than a parent is angry when a child disobeys rules.  Rules are meant to protect and create a balance in relationships.  We may call the parents reaction anger, but it is fear over what that disobedience will bring, hurt over the rejection, grief over the child’s pain when he suffers the consequences. If you want to call God’s reaction to breakng His laws anger, go right ahead, but I am more incline to make an analysis of that anger and conclude it is grief.  That verse says: “anger against His people.”  The word against is the preposition Beth which means in, on or with.  You can stretch this preposition to mean “against,” if the context calls for it and if you believe in an angry irrational God go with “against.”  Since I do not believe in an angry irrational God I go with the more common rendering of “with.”  God grieves with his people, just as a parent grieves with their child who suffers the consequences of disobedience. 

But say, God takes this grieving with His people when they suffer the consequences of disobedience a step further.  In verse 19 we learn that He is giving them a song. The word for song in this verse and in verse 30 is sur which is a song with lyrics, according to Rabbi Hirsch it is a song of strength  and Moses is instructed to teach this song to the people to tuck away for future generations when they do wander from God. It is sort of a long leash that God is keeping them on.  When they sing this song they will be joined with God again and will find relief from their troubles.  Moses spoke the words of the song to the people the word spoke is davar which is speaking form the heart.  Moses spoke from his heart the words. The word used here for word is davar, the words of this song were spoken from the heart of God and when the time comes and the people cannot find their way back to God all they need to do is sing this song. 

Elie Wiesel the Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survior wrote in his book “Night” how he watched his father murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. He was so tramatized that he could not cry.  Years later he sat with a rabbi all through the night and told him his story of pain, torture and being forced to watch his father and others of his family murdered.  The rabbi asked him what he could do?  Elie said: “Teach me to cry.”  The rabbi replied: “I will teach you to cry only if you promise that after you learn to cry, you learn to sing.” 

When we are first born again, God gives us a song. He knows us, He knows the future, He knows that we will on day wander away from Him. So when we do we need to call on that song that God gave us.  It may be a Gospel song, worship song, Hymn, secular song or even a special song that has never been written except for you.  Just as an old married couple have a song that they shared when they first fell in love, we have a song with God that we shared when we first fell in love with Him.  It is “our” song, a song between God and us and He gave us that song to be used when we wander from Him and can’t find our way back.