Psalm 98B - A Song to Sing (Part 2)

Strophe #2: verses 4-6 How we should sing

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth;

Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.

Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,

With the lyre and the sound of melody.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn

Shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. (Psalm 98: 4-6, NASB)

Worship styles change from country to country and from religious tradition to religious tradition. Some worship today is called “traditional” and some "contemporary” in worship style. Choir, organ, and piano often lead the music of the service of traditional services. In contrast, contemporary worship is led by a Worship Team, consisting of a rhythm section of drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, the lead singer (often called the worship leader) and backup singers.

In Africa today, leaders of worship often use a single keyboard that utilizes the drum tracks built into the keyboard, perhaps a bass guitar, and a lead singer, which might change from song to song with backup singers. These churches often also have choirs that typically tell stories with movement.

A Presbyterian church in the United States may have pews where the congregation sits for most of the service, except to stand for singing and occasionally begin to clap as a more contemporary song is sung. A Pentecostal church in East Africa will dance, shout, and move around the room as the service progresses. The difference in worship styles is profound, yet all of these believers in Jesus have the same goal - to worship God.

It is not the style of worship that God desires. God enjoys all forms of worship where those worshiping are worshiping in Spirit and Truth.

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4: 23, 24, NASB)

There are a series of verbs in Psalm 98 that describe the activity of worship with music. Two of the verbs appear twice. (References here are from the standard Hebrew lexicon,  BDB, (Brown, Driver, and Biggs. 1980, Oxford University Press). (The numbers accompanying BDB here, refer to the pages and position on the page where the specific verse is mentioned, or where the stem and tense are the same. Because the lexicon is organized according to Hebrew spellings, those unfamiliar with Hebrew might still be able to access information from this source using these numbers.)

verse 4

a) Shout-for-joy! “hare’’u” from “rua”, to raise a shout

BDB, 929d 5 - 1. raise a shout 2. give a blast with a clarion or horn

war cry; alarm in battle; war march; triumph; applause; cry out in distress

5. “shout with religious impulse” - cites usage in a number of psalms 

47:2; 66:1; 81:2; 95:1,2; 98:4; 98:6; 100:1

Summary: this is not a quiet expression. This word means to generate a significant volume of sound. Not a quiet nor contemplative expression of worship, this worship is a very exuberant, loud, and vibrant declaration of praise. 

b) Burst-forth! “ppitsehuv “ push; cause to break forth

BDB, 822d  - cause to break or burst forth, break forth with

Qal stem, Imperative absolute “break forth”, as with joy

Piel stem, “break bones in pieces”

Summary: similarly, not a quiet expression. This expression is a pronouncement, an exclamation. Here it is combined with the next two verbs.

c) (and) Sing! “verannenu  rnn”, give a ringing cry

BDB, 943c  - give a ringing cry; cry aloud

Piel stem - give a ringing cry, in joy, exultation, especially in praise to Yahweh. Many uses in many psalms. 

Summary:  not a quiet expression. As a vocal cry, an exclamation, perhaps as spectators do at sporting events for an outstanding play.

The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team plays at Dodger Stadium, which seats about 56,000 people. The nature of the game is that the pitchers will make upwards of 100 pitches during the game, and most of those do not result in hits and very few result in home runs. But when the loud crack of the bat announces the launch of the ball over the fence, the crowd's roar is deafening.

Similarly, Los Angeles has two professional football teams, the Rams and the Chargers, and two college football teams, the UCLA Bruins and the USC Trojans. The Rams and Chargers have a brand new stadium in 2021, newly named the SoFi stadium, which seats 70,000 for football and 100,000 for concert events. The Bruins play in the Rose Bowl, which has a seating capacity of almost 91,000, and the Trojans play in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which seats 78,500.

When so many people suddenly shout with a great play, it is an amazingly exciting experience. Such shouting is a “ringing cry” if ever there was one.  

Anyone in a football/soccer stadium anywhere in the world knows this roar of the crowd.

d) (and) make music! “vezammeru zmr” make music

BDB, 274b 1  - only in Piel stem, make music in praise of God. 1. of singing to God 2. of playing musical instruments. The article includes all uses of the verb in the Old Testament. Here, in Psalm 98, it is used in the absolute in parallel with the other verbs.

Summary: there is no indication of volume with this word, but it has a more technical usage of making music than simply making noise. Here the art of music, of composing melodies and harmonies, is understood. So while the other verbs denote enthusiasm and zeal of praise, this verb refers to the organization of sound according to musical principles.

verse 5

a) make music! “vezammeru zmr” make music (same verb as #4, but different usage in construct with instruments

BDB 274b 2

construct - “to Yahweh”; same verb as verse 4d, above.

with harp

b) with harp and the voice of singing (same verb - zmr)

BDB 274b 3

this is the noun form of the verb, thus, a song

verse 6

a) with trumpets “bahatsotserot” and voice of ram’s horn “shofar”

b) Shout-for-joy! “hare’’u rua” raise a shout

BDB 929d 5 (same verb as v. 4a, above), here using musical instruments 

before the king (melek) Yahweh

Summary: These verbs describe loud musical expressions of worship using instruments.

How loud is good, and how loud is not good?

There is an app for phones called DecibelX, which can measure the sound levels in a room. It is a free download. Generally, music is loud but not dangerous, up to about 95 decibels (dB). Over 95, it begins to become dangerous when sustained. The higher the decibel level above 95,  the shorter the time before the possibility of permanent hearing loss in children, and pain for the elderly.

Nearly all churches around the world now use sound reinforcement in their services. All singers and speakers use microphones, and all instruments use amplifiers, either stand-alone or through the house sound system.

Music and Worship Arts Training (MWAT)(Shedd) is a curriculum of six courses for Pastors, Worship Leaders, and those involved in music and worship ministries. Parts of this curriculum examine the issues of working with sound reinforcement systems in great detail.

Any church which uses sound reinforcement places their trust in the sound engineer who runs that system. The volume of the entire experience is entrusted to that person. Thus, the person controlling the sound mix for the roomhas complete discretion regarding the sound level.

The sound engineer works to mix the music with the ambient sounds (those not controlled by the sound system, which can be musical, as an acoustic drum kit, or non-musical, as outside traffic noise or inside fans), and thus ultimately the overall sound.

Unfortunately, often those who have the responsibility of controlling the decibel level of the sound in the room are not sensitive to the dangers of high decibel levels and will run the system as loud as possible. One supposes that their thought is, “more is better, and a lot more is a lot better." But as with salt, that is not always true. Sometimes “a lot” is terrible.

Levels above 100 dB must be very carefully modulated and not sustained for long periods. Levels about 105 dB can only be tolerated for very short periods, especially for the young. In the US, OSHA  standards are rigorous.

[see: https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/noisehearingconservation/]

(Osha = United Staes Department of Labor: Occupational Safety and Health Administration)

Our worship is to be exuberant, joyful, and full of music. And yet, when we experience worship differently from what we are used to, we are tempted to think:  “This worship is different than I do. Therefore it is wrong.” 

According to the exhortations in this psalm, this worship is different, and it may be right! If we are used to calming and careful worship, we might need a kick in the pants to get us out of our comfortable seating and let things loose a little!

Worship ministers and leaders can help their congregations explore varieties of expressions of worship but must do so with care. The traditions that people have in worship are challenging to change.

For many older Americans, even clapping along to a song is difficult to do. Hearing a contemporary beat, having drums in church, or even using a guitar is difficult for them to accept in worship.

Transitioning from a traditional style of worship to a more contemporary style of worship is difficult to do. Many churches have experienced the “worship wars," as they struggled to meet the desires and expectations of older and younger worshipers. In America, most new churches simply embrace the Worship Team model of music in worship and make no attempt whatsoever to use traditional music in their services.

The current worship model is technology-dependent and is unique in the history of the church. And yet, each generation has dependencies: the large cathedrals in Europe were dependent upon their massive pipe organs, which also produce very high decibel levels.

Strophe #3: verses 7-9 Creation sings

Let the sea roar and all it contains,

The world and those who dwell in it.

Let the rivers clap their hands,

Let the mountains sing together for joy

Before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth;

He will judge the world with righteousness

And the peoples with equity. (Psalm 98: 7-9, NASB)

The final strophe in the psalm is an imaginative song of the creation of God expressing praise back to God.

Four images of the earth are metaphors for voices of praise:

1) Sea and all it contains.

The oceans cover 71% of the planet.

https://www.oceanicinstitute.org/aboutoceans/aquafacts.html

2) World and those who dwell in it.

There are currently 7.5 billion people on the earth as of June 2019 with a net daily change of nearly +30,000.

3) Let the rivers clap their hands.

4) Let mountains sing together for joy.

Before the Lord

He is coming to judge the earth

He will judge the world with righteousness

And the peoples with equity.

Are modern-day people offended that the Lord is a judge?

One wonders what people might think if He wasn’t a judge. Should there be no accountability for wrongdoing? What if there were no judges in your city? Would lawlessness rule? Would everyone do what was right in their own eyes? The book of Judges ends with, "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 21:25),  implying that this was a horrible state of affairs.

Governments today are evaluated in terms of corruption. What would control crime if there were no judges? The ability of a country to live according to the rule of law is a measure of its credibility. If there are no judges, then how is the rule of law enforced? Through tyranny or dictatorships? Generally, societies do not choose to live in anarchy and mob rule.

So judges are required in just societies. As the father-in-law of Moses saw the need for Moses to set up a system of judges, every community needs fair and honest judges to determine cases of injustice and issues of rights and law.

Therefore, God is the just judge because He is without sin.

The beauty of the gospel is that God has determined that perfect justice and perfect love are manifest in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for the sin of the world. We will all appear at the judgment seat of God, and those whose sins were nailed to the cross will be declared righteous based upon the one who was made a propitiation for our sin. Hallelujah!

So do we have something about which to sing? Indeed we do - and indeed we should.