Quick Word Study – Song of Protection – Nagah – Nun Gimmel Hei 

Psalms 77:6:  “I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.”

Many years ago I worked a night shift at a candy factory. On my way to work, I would tune my car radio to WMBI, the radio station of Moody Bible Institute and every night during my drive to the candy factory I would listen to a program called Songs in the Night.  I learned that the title for this program was taken from Psalms 77:6. I often pondered what was so special about a song in the night.

In studying this verse in the Hebrew I soon learned what the significance of a song in the night was.  First, we need to note that hireq yod suffix attached to the word for song is a personal pronoun noun meaning “my.”  This is not just any song, but my song in the night.  Yesterday morning I woke up singing a song by Andre Crouch taken from Isaiah 26:3, “I will keep thee in perfect peace if only your mind would stay on me.”  I knew I was probably in for it that day as I felt God gave me that message to prepare me for the events of the day.  Was that really what the Psalmist meant by my song in the night?  Perhaps not.

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There are many words for song and singing in the Hebrew.  This is a strange song.  It is the word neginah from the root word nagan. Your lexicon says a song on a stringed instrument, a poem set to music, or a mocking, taunting song, a song of derision or satire. Yet, according to the Jewish linguist Rabbi Samson Hirsch, the word also has the idea of protection or preservation. 

In the play and movie Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye sings the song: “If I Were a Rich Man.”  In this song, he sings: “If I were a rich man yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.  All day long I’d biddy biddy bum.”  He is using nonsense words to hide or protect his true thoughts.  Or perhaps he really does not know what he truly would do as a rich man.  What Tevye is doing is singing nagans or nigguns as some express it. These are nonsense words that have no meaning to the mind and are protecting what the heart or spirit is singing.  We don’t always know the cry of our heart or spirit.  Thus when we pray we are praying from our minds and lips and not our hearts.  I may pray: “Lord, give me a candy apple red Porsche” and my spirit is saying: “Don’t you do it either, give him a broken down Jeep Patriot so he can depend on You more.” 

The Jews recognize how important it is to be honest before the Lord so they will sing or say nonsense words from their mind and lips so that their spirit may speak the truth to God.  Not unlike some Charismatics who pray in tongues.  They have no idea what they are praying, but they are commanding their spirit to pray and whatever their spirit is praying is truth and God promises that whatever we ask in His name He will answer.   We don’t always ask in the name of Jesus with our lips and minds.  It is usually in our name that we are asking and God makes no promises that He will answer those prayers, only those spoken in the name of Jesus, and those are words from our heart or spirit.  When our spirit is joined with the spirit of God whatever our spirit asks it will be granted.   Is it not that God does not answer every prayer, it is simply that our spirits censor many of our prayers before they ever reach God.   God hears only the cry of our heart or spirit, not our lips. 

 

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