FCC 100 Session 3: Expressions of praise 1

Listen

Listen to my and Lester Sim’s podcast episode on “Yadah“.

Listen to our podcast episode on “Towdah“

What is “Praise”?

Growing up in the church, I remember a time when worship leaders referred to fast songs as “praise” and slow songs as “worship”. This made no actual sense.

An easy way to understand “praise” is this: praise is to say something good about someone or what they have done.

Praise and worship can be distinguished as follows: “praise” (in the sense of being done towards God) is an act of “worship”, but “worship” is not necessarily “praise”. Praise is a subset of worship but worship is the foundation for praise.

So, praise is really an expression of worship.

In the English language, we just use the word “praise”. But in the Old Testament, there are seven Hebrew words which we render as “praise”, and all of them carry different meanings.

In this session, we want to look at two particular Hebrew words for praise that has to do with the lifting or extension of the hands, namely “yadah” and “towdah”.

In our modern church setting, we often see people lift their hands during worship. Many times, it is a cultural thing – as if it is emblematic of what people in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches do. Or maybe they’ve seen other people do it. Or maybe the worship leader has said something like “let’s lift up our hands”. However, when we study “yadah” and “towdah”, we will find that the Biblical words carry extraordinarily deep significance which can in fact transform the way we praise God.

Yadah

The first mention of the word yadah in the Bible is found in Genesis 29:35:

[Leah] conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise [yadah] the Lord.” So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.

Yadah means “to give thanks, laud, praise”.

Its root has to do with the use of the hands; to throw or shoot; and also to revere and worship with extended hands.

I like the picture of throwing or shooting. When you throw something or you propel something, it is not a weak gesture. Throwing is something which captures the attention of the receiver. Throwing is about intention and power.

The word also means “to confess“. Lester Sim says it is to confess the truth about someone or something. In the context of God, we confess his worthiness and goodness. In the reflexive sense, in the context of the truth about ourselves, it refers to our confession of our own sinfulness.

Psalm 141:2 says:

May my prayer be set before you like incense;
May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

In this sense, the lifting of our hands is symbolic of biblical sacrifice.

The evening sacrifice is described in Deuteronomy 16. The evening sacrifice took place at the ninth hour, or 3 pm – the exact time when Jesus gave up His last breath on the cross. In this way, Jesus became the ultimate evening sacrifice, spilling His blood for the atonement of our sins.

When we lift our hands in praise, God reckons it as the evening sacrifice; a remembrance of Christ’s act on the cross, but also a symbol of my acceptance to God even as I am in Christ.

So on our part, it is a confession of sin. As James Strong observes, it’s not

a moralistic autobiographical catalogue of sins – individual infractions of a moral code – but a confession of the underlying sinfulness that engulfs all humankind and separates us from a holy God.

And then Strong says this:

If praise inevitably entails confession of sin, the reverse is also true. The sure word of forgiveness elicits praise and thanksgiving on the confessor’s part.

It is interesting to consider “yadah” again in the context of Genesis 29. Leah had felt unloved because she had not been the object of Jacob’s affection. Jacob had worked hard for Laban to win Rachel as his wife but Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah instead. The text says that the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, and He opened up Leah’s womb.

The first child she bore was called Reuben, meaning “The Lord has seen my misery.”
The second child was Simeon, meaning “the one who hears, or God has heard me”.
The third child was Levi, which means “attached”. Leah’s hope was that by giving birth to Levi, Jacob would become attached to her.
The fourth child was called “Judah” which means “praise”, derived from the word yadah. And then verse 35 says she stopped having children.

This is a picture of self-centredness turning towards God-centredness. This is the idea of the sacrifice! This is what Jesus did as the ultimate sacrifice.

It is no coincidence that despite being the fourth son, the tribe of Judah would be the one that would lead Israel throughout its wandering through the desert. And it is from the tribe of Judah that Israel was given one of its most celebrated kings – David. And it is from the tribe of Judah and the line of David that Jesus the Messiah was born. Praise leads us out of our self-centredness, towards God-centredness, so that ultimately He can fulfill His plans and purposes in and through us.

Towdah

Another word for “praise” which is similar is towdah, which means an extension of the hand in thanksgiving.

Strong’s Concordance says that the word is used to indicate “thanksgiving in songs of worship” and particularly in the context of the public procession (e.g. Neh 12:31-38).

Psalm 42:4 says:

These things I remember
As I pour out my soul:
How I used to go to the house of God
Under the protection of the Mighty One
With shouts of joy and praise [towdah]
Among the festive throng

When we approach God in praise, do we, like the Psalmist exhorts, “remember these things?” Do we recall the goodness of God in our lives and be truly thankful for His blessings?

If we do, it should elicit joy and thanksgiving.

What is particularly interesting however is when we look at yadah and towdah together. Whereas yadah is about expressing thanksgiving for what God has done – for Christ’s sacrifice for us – towdah is about our bringing a sacrifice of praise for things not yet received, even when we don’t feel like it. It is a confession which conveys our trust in the goodness of God for our future!

In Psalm 42:11, the Psalmist says

Why are you so downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God
For I will yet praise [towdah] Him
My Saviour and my God.

Ps 56:11-12 says

In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can man do to me?
I am under vows to you, my God;
I will present my thank offerings [towdah] to you.

The author of Hebrews says in Chapter 13, verse 15:

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit (calves) of our lips giving thanks to His name.

It is one thing to thank God for what He has done, but it is a sacrifice of praise when we offer thanksgiving despite our circumstances and not knowing whether God will do what He said He would do.

We see a beautiful picture of this in Genesis 15, after God had promised Abraham that He would make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. In verse 6, the text says that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Then Abraham asked God, “how can I know that I will gain possession of the land?” (verse 7). There God called Abraham to bring a sacrifice. And it seems, after some time, verse 17 says that a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces of the sacrifice.

In the midst of the sacrifice of praise, God Himself confirmed His promise by passing between the sacrifice, in essence saying that He himself would take on the penalty of being cut to pieces if He did not fulfill His promise!

Interestingly, towdah also corresponds to the fellowship or peace offering in Leviticus 7:11-12:

These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the Lord.

‘If they offer it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering they are to offer thick loaves made without yeast and with olive oil mixed in, thin loaves made without yeast and brushed with oil, and thick loaves of the finest flour well-kneaded and with oil mixed in.‘

Part of the offering was presented to God, but another part of it is also eaten. This implies eating together with God, or fellowship.

So the lifting of our hands in towdah also connotes drawing near and communing with God through thanksgiving.

So here’s the point – praise costs us something. When we go through difficult seasons, it’s not the time to shrink back or run from God. We ought to praise despite the circumstances and purpose to draw near to Him in a sacrifice of praise.

Further Resources

John Piper on “Should We Raise our Hands in Worship?”

Kent Henry on “Yadah”

Kent Henry on “Towdah”

And here’s something tangential but an interesting message by Bill Johnson on thanksgiving. Which I think dovetails nicely into what we have been teaching about thanksgiving and a sacrifice of praise.