HEBREW WORD STUDY – I WILL SING –  ‘ASHIRAH   

Psalms 104:33: “I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.”

Mark 5:30:  “And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”

I was reading in the extra-Biblical literature and noticed a rather odd use for the Aramaic word chayel which is rendered in Mark 5:30 as virtue or power.  It is sometimes used for dancing, or for twirling around, it suggests movement.  It has even been rendered as vibrations. What Jesus could very well have been saying is that when the woman with the issue of blood touched Him, He felt vibrations go out from Him and she was healed. 

I was reading some of the works of Rabbi Solomon Hirsch, a master of Hebrew and Semitic languages. He points out that unlike our European languages where words are developed randomly, the Semitic languages built words from basic roots. From this Solomon Hirsch also suggests a relationship between chavel and its Aramaic equivalent chayel and concluded that God also passed on to us something dealing with movement. Hirsch lived in the 19^th Century.  In the 21^st Century, we have devoted much scientific study to the idea of movement.  We have learned that everything that exists in the natural world is moving.

Even a rock which appears totally steady is on a molecular level is actually moving, we call it vibrations. Vibrations produce a sound, a musical sound, a song.  Scientists have even found a way to record the sound or vibrations of matter.  Everything that exists has a song, we have a song as our body and soul vibrates.

Note Psalms 104:33 it says that I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live and as long as I have my being.  The word for live is chi which is the same root as chayel.  Life and vibrations are of the same root and science has shown that life does give off vibrations.

But now look at this first word that is used for sing. It is the word shir which according to your lexicons means to sing.  We do not learn anything about the nature of singing from our lexicons. It just assumes we all know what singing is. What is the difference in speaking and singing?  In singing, you are trying to make a pleasant musical sound. Webster defines singing as uttering words or sounds in succession with musical modulations of the voice.  Singing has an element of emotions. There is joyful singing, melancholy singing or triumphant singing. Singing and music create a mood it gives off chayel, vibrations.

Than ancient rabbis believed the root word for shir was shur.  That being the case the word shur means to become excited, to leap or spring upward. Again the idea of movement bringing us back to vibrations.  Singing is all about creating vibrations. 

The second word used for sing is rendered as sing praises, it is the word zamar which is the strumming of an instrument or striking strings with the fingers to make them vibrate. There it is again that word vibrate.  Singing praises to God is creating a vibration that is in tune with the vibrations of God. If Rabbi Hirsch is right that there is a relationship between being created in the image of God and vibrations which would mean when he declared that man and woman were good or tov that is in harmony with when God created man and woman He created them to be of the same vibrations, the same frequency that He vibrates at. 

I remember as a child making a crystal radio.  I would play with a little thingy that adjusted the frequency and then through my headphones I would hear a lot of static.  But as the frequency of my radio started to match the frequency or vibrations of the radio signal being sent I began to gradually get a clear sound. 

Could it be that when we worship God in words and songs we are creating vibrations that are matching those of God and the closer our vibrations get to the vibrations of God the clearer He becomes to us?  It could be that Godly music will draw us closer to God. As those vibrations that match His bring us in tune with God.