Hebrew Word Study – Worship – Shachah – שָׁחָה  Shin Cheth Hei

Psalms 29:2: “Give unto the Lord the glory due His name, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” 

This is from Chaim’s Book Chapter 4 – Swimming In His Presence –  A Hebrew Teacher Reflects on Worship and Praise

Swimming In His Presence: A Hebrew Teacher Reflects On Worship & Praise: Bentorah, Chaim: 9781953247841: Amazon.com: Books

So here we have a verse which encourages us to worship the Lord.  Yet, we are not just to worship Him but worship Him in the beauty of His Holiness. I just thrill when I utter the words to God that I am worshipping him in the beauty of His holiness. I get such a blessing from this that for years I never bothered to figure out just what that meant. It is strange how we use so many words and phrases from Scripture and never stop to ask ourselves if we really know what they mean.  For instance, we use the word faith all the time, yet how often do you stop to meditate on that word and really examine what it means?  We don’t, we just know it means to believe in God and that is enough.  At the end of the chapter I will give you a little nudge from the Aramaic that will allow you to really meditate on this word faith.  However, back to the expression  the beauty of His holiness.  I finally sat down one day and studied this expression and I discovered some interesting things about it that really helped me in my personal relationship with God.

The word beauty in Hebrew is behadrat which means a garment. For this reason, commentators expressed the worship of God in a sanctuary or church where the priest and preachers wear beautiful robes and garments.  In fact, it is this verse that serves the basis for priestly garments or robes worn by ministers in a church.  

I suppose this makes sense.  When you are surrounded by a beautiful sanctuary and your worship leader is dressed in beautiful colorful robes, it is conducive to worship.  It does help one focus on God and His beauty.  However, I have a friend who worked with the underground church in a nation where Christians were persecuted.  He described how some of the most beautiful expressions of worship that he has experience in his entire life were in a cold, dark, dank dungeon, led by a Christian believer who had not bathed in weeks and was dressed in dirty, tattered clothes.  Perhaps you need a beautiful sanctuary and a leader dressed in beautiful robes to worship God but my friend would very much disagree.

There is another problem with applying this word behadrat to garments.  This passage is  speaking of the behadrat kodesh the garments of Holiness. When you look at the word holy or kodesh you find it means something sacred, consecrated, or set apart. Maybe a piece of cloth can be consecrated to God, but I suspect God is more interested in our lives being consecrated, sacred and set apart.  But who am I to fly in the face of 2,000 years of tradition?

However, let us assume that this garment of holiness or sacredness is really our lives consecrated to God and our bodies as the garment that carries this consecration. What would that mean for us? For one thing it would mean we could worship Him. The Hebrew word for worship  could have two possible roots, shacah which is to fall prostrate or sacah which means to swim or surround yourself with water.  The only difference between the two words in the Hebrew is that there is a dot on the top of the  right side of the Shin in shacah.  Where the word sacah has a dot on the top of the Shin making it a Sine (s).  However, these dots were not added to the text until about 700 years after the birth of Christ by a group of scribes known as the Masoretes. The ancient Hebrew text, the inspired text, does not distinguish between a Shin (sh) and Sine (s). Both are the same words in the ancient Hebrew and therefore I believe both meanings apply here.  This is really important because 99% of the worship I see and experience does not involve a falling down prostrate in worship.  What I do see are people standing with arms lifted just basking in the presence of God.  I see more sacah swimming or surrounding in the presence of God  than shacah falling prostrate.

If the word beauty really means a garment then beauty could be a reference to something that covers your body like a garment. That is, after all, the purpose of a garment, to cover your body.  The covering of your body or beauty is holiness that is your body is being consecrated or set apart.  When you worship God you are allowing God to just cover your body and consecrate you, that is wash away all that sinfulness and make you white as snow.  When that happens then you are ready to worship Him sacah, that is to swim in His presence, surrounding yourself with His presence as the water surrounds you when you are swimming.  I believe that is what it means to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness, he covers all your sins so that He can consecrate you, set you apart from everything that would separate you from Him so you can just drown yourself in His presence.

Actually, the idea of baptism by immersion, as we call it, originates from this very idea.  To the Jews it is a  mikveh which is an immersion in water by a woman  to achieve the ritual of purity after menstruation or childbirth.  It is simply nothing more than a picture or illustration of being surrounded by the presence of God to be purify so you can enter into worship.1

I challenge you to do this.  Just hold out your hands like you are holding out your hands to receive a gift.  Close your eyes and simply pray: “Come Holy Spirit.”  Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  The word hope in the Aramaic is sabra which has many renderings.  However, I have found a rendering in extra Biblical literature that makes sense to me. It is used to express a positive imagination.  Faith is the evidence of something you cannot see so you use your imagination your sabra. Picture in your imagination a cloud descending upon you, a cloud of love, peace and beauty, just imagine it.  God gave us an imagination, we use it when we read novels, plan social events and many things, why not use it to imagine God covering you in a cloud of love and then imagine swimming in His presence because you know what, that is exactly what is happening. You just have to imagine it and believe it and it will be. That is faith and that is worshipping him in the beauty of His holiness.  I know it feels like a mind game, I don’t believe God is into such games, He is into faith and believing.  He promises to fill you with the Holy Spirit if you ask, then just ask and practice faith by sabra, imagining what is not seen. Worshipping Him in the beauty of his holiness is simply letting Him surround you with his love and presence like a cloud, like sachah, swimming in the midst of His love. Just sabra, imagine it and believe it is Him.

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