It was commanded in the Torah and in the books of the Prophets to greatly rejoice and to be glad before the Lord's face. It repeatedly says that God's people do not hesitate to express the joy that God pours out into their hearts. In ancient Hebrew, the language of the Tanakh (the Bible), there are six different words where one of the major meaning is 'shout for joy'. There is another couple of words with the meaning 'to noisily rejoice, to laugh loudly'.

Basically, almost all these words were hidden in the traditional Bible translation. In rare instances, they have been translated correctly. In general, where it says 'shout for joy!', 'rejoice and jump for delight!' it has been translated simply as 'be glad and rejoice'. There are a number of passages where the verb 'shout' was translated as the verb 'sing'.

I have checked the meaning of this verb against many dictionaries and I have noticed that in several passages of the Scripture this verb does not have this meaning at all. Instead of correct translation as 'shout with joy', 'God's people shouted from joy...', 'greatly rejoice' they have been merely translated as 'God's people sang'.

I vote for singing! In our congregation, we sing so much. Some people think the Shabbat service is over when the singing is over :-) In many assemblies the whole service goes on as long as the worship goes in our congregation. But actually, the singing can partially express God's joy.

We are living in times when the Jewish original version is restored all over the world, in many congregations and churches! It restores not only in the congregations and the churches of the New Covenant but among others which keen to be filled with the juice of the Jewish olive tree. It turns out that they have been grafted to this tree but they did not have any clue. They intend to be restored in full authenticity of the biblical Tanakh and the New Testament. They intend to be restored in the variety of colors of God's rainbow! They intend to be restored in the palette of colors and tints of God's joy and delight, triumph, and festivals which occupy an important place in God's Word and in the life of God's people.

© Boris Grisenko