Listen
Listen to my and Lester Sim’s podcast episode on “Halal“.
Also, listen to our podcast on “Barak“.
So far, we have looked at singing (tehillah) as a means of praise. We have also looked at what it means to extend our hands (yadah and towdah).
What is clear is that we are called to love God with all our heart, soul (emotions, will and intellect) and strength – or physical exertion. We have seen that even the physical act of lifting our hands is more than a cultural norm in some churches, but it carries spiritual significance and meaning.
In this session, we will explore three more Hebrew words for “praise”: halal (which has to do with physical movement); shabach (which has to do with shouting); and barak (which has to do with bowing).
Halal – Boasting in the Lord
Halal doesn’t have anything to do with the way you kill your chicken or the type of food you eat.
Halal means to shine, to make a show or to boast, to be clamourously foolish, to rave. It is the root word for hallelujah.
Whilst the Scripture doesn’t apply this word directly to what David did when he danced before the Lord, many commentators often cite David’s apparently foolish dancing (and his declaration to be “more undignified than this”) to be an example of halal.
The first use of this word was in Genesis 12:14:
When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that [Sarai] was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaohs officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh.
2 Sam 14:25
In all Israel there was not man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him.
What is interesting about boasting is that you do not boast to the object of your praise. Boasting is not in the first person. Instead, a boast is about someone to a third person. For example, if I told my wife “Your cooking is great”, that is a direct compliment. But it is boasting is I tell everyone else, “look, how great my wife’s cooking is…”
Halal in the form of praise is most closely linked to witness and evangelism. I like what Harold Best says: “witness is worship overheard!”
As a person who found evangelism to be very hard and unnatural, this was an incredibly liberating thought! In other words, I could naturally talk about what God has done in my life, without having to feel like I need to “force” the deal. I will leave that to the gifted evangelists.
But there’s also an element of halal that implies praise through movement in dance (“clamorously foolish”), hence the association with David’s dancing in 2 Samuel 6 when the ark was brought before Jerusalem. David danced “before the Lord with all his might”. So this wasn’t ballet, or the graceful moves of a modern worship dancer with ribbons and banners, but wild, triumphant and strong. And apparently humiliating. So much so that his wife thought his dancing as “vulgar”.
If God has truly been so good to us, the thought ought to cause us to exert all our strength in celebration.
Last week, I saw my 6 year-old nephew get excited for birthday cake. Granted he was more dramatic than most kids, but the thought of cake had him bopping up and down on his chair and thumping his fist on the table and singing “cakey, cakey…” Shouldn’t God equally fill us with joy and expectation in a similar way?
And here’s the point: passionate praise cannot be self-contained. It spills over. It overflows. It demands a response from those who witness it. It will either elicit disdain like Michal, or it will inspire joy and freedom.
The world notices when God’s people passionately praise Him. More and more, the spiritually hungry are not looking for a program or a religious remedy for their sense of emptiness; they are looking for an authenticity in our relationship with God.
Now, let me show you the connection between boasting/witnessing and dancing.
The word hilul in the book of Leviticus (which has the same root word) is used to describe the way the Israelites celebrated a harvest festival. They would dance on the grapes and as they did, the juices would be expressed for winemaking. Imagine their joy as they danced – celebrating the fulfillment of the harvest.
In the same way, Psalm 67:5-7 says:
May the peoples praise [halal] you, O God;
May all the peoples praise you.
Then the land will yield its harvest
And God, our God will bless us.
God will bless us,
And all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Halal praise prepares the way for the land to yield its harvest.
Shabach – Shouting His Praises
Shabach means to address in a loud tone; to shout; to commend; to glory and triumph.
The first mention of shabach is in 1 Chron 16:35 (in a song composed by David after he had just brought the Ark back to Jerusalem and instituted musicians and singers in new “form” of worship):
Cry out, “Save us, God our Savior; gather us and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, and glory in your praise.”
Interestingly, shabach means both a laudatory proclamation – public, enthusiastic praise directed towards the – but at the same time, also calming or commending – the stilling of tumults. Whilst this seems contradictory, it is an authoritative utterance that elevates and also pacifies. Victory is also what brings about peace.
We shout when we are excited. In fact, I have seen otherwise reserved, quiet people really lose it when they are watching their favourite sport.
Once, I found myself in a corporate box at a West Coast Eagles game. I thought I was just going to enjoy the free lunch. But as the game got more exciting; as Josh Kennedy kept kicking more and more goals; as the crowd began to ramp up their cheering; I found myself unexpectedly shouting with them and loudly barracking for the team and high-fiving strangers around me. And I don’t even follow football!
There are more verses in the Bible on shouting and joyful noises than there are about silence.
Habakkuk 2 ends in verse 20 with:
The Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silent before Him.
But this is just the prelude!
Chapter 3 begins with the prophet’s response:
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.
Lord, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day,
In our time make them known;
In wrath, remember mercy.
The Amplified Bible translates the preamble as follows:
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, set to wild, enthusiastic and triumphal music.
We are called to shout our praises with wild enthusiasm, with a sense of triumph to the same intensity as when our football team wins! Victory accompanies shouting!
Psalm 47:5 says:
God has ascended amid shouts of joy
The Lord amid the sounding of the trumpets.
I love the picture of God rising up as His people shout! And Psalm 68:1 then says:
May God arise, may His enemies be scattered.
Psalm 118:15
Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
If God is the one who fights our battles; if He is victorious and causes us to triumph with Him; then we have every reason to shout His praises!
Barak – Kneeling in Worship
Barak means to kneel; to bless as an act of adoration. This word is the most paradigmatic of what it means to praise God.
It is interesting that the first mention of this word is actually in the sense of God’s blessing His creation.
In Genesis 1:22, after making all sorts of animals, it says:
God blessed [barak] them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number…”
Then, in Genesis 1:28 in relation to humankind:
God blessed [barak] them and said to them “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
For God to bless us is really an act of His “kneeling”, his stooping down; going below His level! But it is also an act flowing out of his adoration for us; his love for us.
Philippians 2 says He laid aside His majesty and became a servant, being obedient even to the cross. God didn’t need to do this, but he was prepared to humble Himself for us.
To “bless” is to bestow favour – to give something to someone, usually because they can’t get it themselves. Last year, when we went on a mission trip to Japan, the Lord blessed me with a tax refund (which I haven’t had for a long time as a business owner) and it paid for both my and my wife’s plane tickets.
We readily understand what it means for God to bless us, but (and we’ve been singing it lately – “bless God in the sanctuary / bless God in the fields of plenty …“) what does it mean to bless God? Is there anything that we can give God that He does not already have?
Tom Inglis put it this way: God can do anything but praise Himself. When we praise God, we give Him the only thing He can’t give himself. When we do this, He gives us the things that we can’t give ourselves.
And Christ’s humility is what drives us; what gives us the model; what inspires our own humility and selflessless. Because of God’s barak, we can also barak God in return.
This for me is the ultimate expression of worship, and that’s why I think we need to learn to kneel before God if we are to truly express our praise to Him – not only in a worship service, but to kneel before Him our whole lives.
I remember in 2006 going to Hillsong Conference for the first time.
One of the people I wanted to hear was Jack Hayford who was a pioneer of the worship movement globally. He wrote the song “Majesty, Worship His Majesty” in the early 1980s which was a pivotal song in the church worship landscape. But he was also one of the forerunners who developed theology around the global explosion of worship in the church.
No one else in my team was interested in listening to this old guy who seemed pretty much past his use-by date. He wasn’t really cool like the other platform leaders.
So I went to the session myself, sitting there in a sea of strangers.
I remember one of the things Hayford said during that session that completely wrecked me. He said “do you know that Lucifer was the person who was closest to the throne of God?”
Theologians have suggested that before he fell, Lucifer was heaven’s worship leader, adorned with all sorts of musical instruments and exceedingly beautiful.
Leading worship from the platform can often become a source of pride. And it’s very subtle. “You sang really nicely today.” Or “you played so well”. And before you know it, you start thinking, “Look what I did!” Like Lucifer, you start thinking that the worship is for you. You start taking a gentle ascension towards the throne of God.
When Hayford said those words, I realised that that was exactly what I had been doing. I thought of myself as close to the throne of God. What should have been a very humbling thought became a source of pride. And so I sat there, in a sea of strangers, struck to the core and with tears running down my face. How did I ever let worship get to this?
Towards the end of his talk, Hayford got on his knees. This 80 year old statesman of the church, so steeped in revelation of God; a leader of a worldwide denomination; author of over 50 books; composer of over 400 songs; shaper of a movement; mentor of the likes of Darlene Zschech; knelt on the stage and said, “every day I pray that I would just be like a little child before God.”
It was a reminder that no matter what we’ve done, how far we’ve come, how much others think of us – at the end of the day – humility is the hallmark of a true worshipper; and therefore the bended knee is the ultimate expression of worship. Worship is simple: He’s God and we are not. May He increase, as we decrease!
The Worship Revolution 
Amazing message ❤️ 👏 💖 🙌
yes truly