Hebrew Word Study – Song – Shir  שור  Shin Vav Resh

Deuteronomy 32:44: “And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.”

It is interesting that the text says Moses spoke the words of a song.  Don’t you usually sing a song?  Now the word for song in Hebrew is shir which could also be a poem. In the Hebrew this song does have a sense of rhythm, a sort of beat or meter.  You could almost say that to speak a song is like singing rap song. Rap is a musical style in which rhythmic and/or rhyming speech is chanted (“rapped”) to musical accompaniment. Moses was likely the first rap artist. To be fair we really don’t know if this was a just recitation of a poem or it was done with musical accompaniment but the Bible does call this a shir.  A shir is a lyrical song, a song that tells a story. It is sort of like a ballad.  It was intended to be a poem of happiness, yet there were some very unpleasant things prophesied in this poem of Moses.  This may be why Moses presented this in a poetic style, to speak the unpleasant things in a loving way. 

There are three forms of communication that take place between God and humanity.  One is ‘amar words of speech and the second is dabar, words of thought or of the heart.  Of course, God rarely speaks to us in an audible voice.  He most often speaks to us in an inaudible way. It is either through a strong prompting or a sense of knowing. Sometimes it is through His creation. Above my desk in my apartment is a window that looks out at a tree.  It is now October when the leaves of the tree die. As they die, they turn from green to bright, beautiful colors. Throughout its life, it performs a vital function in our existence or life here on earth.  It performs that miracle of photosynthesis which is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that converts carbon dioxide which could be toxic to us humans into oxygen which is vital to our life. I look at each leaf created by God whose mission is to give us life and then when it dies it gives us one more gift of beauty in the color of its death. I see the death of each leaf is a sort of beautiful goodbye from an old unsung hero who for his short life faithfully carried out its mission and purpose to bring us life.

In its life from a little green bud into a green leaf God is speaking to me in ‘amar, which is just a general speech to remind me that He has sent his little gift of a leaf to provide oxygen so that I can continue my work here on earth to bring the message of spiritual life to those who are in spiritual death.  Then when fall comes and I see my little green leaves beginning to die, that is when God speaks to me in davar, words of thought or from His heart.  In the death of each leaf God is reminding me that my work, too, will end here on earth, but when it does I shall pass as those leaves, leaving with a message of beauty, declaring that my work here is finished and I am going to something beautiful, the racham love of God. 

Throughout our lives God is constantly speaking to us through ‘amar and devar. Sometimes words from His heart debar, just to remind us He loves us and to speak tenderly of that love to us. Sometimes He speaks in ‘amar giving us direction to move forward and where to move. 

But there is a third way that God speaks to us and that is in shir, song, music, poetry. Music has extraordinary power to evoke emotion. The nuances and motifs of every melody. The music itself has quality of words but words are not conveyed so much as a spirit.  I often play worship music on my disability bus. People who are not open to my words of God’s salvation message are willing to accept the message of the worship music.  The words of music will penetrate the soul just as naturally as words do, but in a deeper place.  Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi  said: “If words are the pen of the heart, song is the pen of the soul.” 

‘Amar and debar, words of speech and words of the heart are fused into one with shir, music and song. Deborah sang after Israel’s victory over the forces of Sisera in Judges 5.  Hanna sang when she had a child in I Samuel 2:1-10. When King Saul was depressed David would play on his musical instrument and King Saul’s spirit would be restored in I Samuel 2:1-2.  David himself was known as the “sweet singer if Israel” in II Samuel 23:1. I find it particularly interesting that Elijah would call a harpist to play so the spirit of prophecy would rest upon him in II Kings 3:15. 

For the first time since their departure from Egypt after the crossing of the Red Sea did the children of Israel do something together and that was to sing. I read something interesting in the Talmud in Sotah 30b that the words of the song came to the minds of all the people simultaneously.  Words that they never spoken or sang before suddenly, as body, they began to sing together, words right from the heart of God and offered back to God. 

The Bible is filled with poetry or songs because the Bible speaks from the heart of God.  Even the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father is a poem.  In fact, if you read it in the Aramaic you find it has a rhythm, a beat, a meter.  Jesus most likely sang or chanted this prayer. 

Have you ever sung your prayers.  Often a song can express in debar what you cannot express in ‘amar.  My life’s prayer, that sing almost every day to God as a prayer is a hymn written over 150 years ago by a sickly woman who died at the age of 38.  Yet, being bed ridden, she still glowed with the light of God such that people called her Miss Sunshine.  One year before she passed, she wrote these words that I carry with me every day of my life for it is a song which is a prayer, it is shir:

I take O’ cross thy shadow

For my abiding place.

I ask no other sunshine 

Than the sunshine of Your face

Content to let the world go by

To know no gain nor loss

My sinful self my only shame

My glory all the cross. 

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