Blessed be the name of the Lord
I'm sure you all know the song, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord', the chorus of which goes,
The name of the Lord is a strong tower
The righteous run into it
and they are saved.
Now, Proverbs 18:10 says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are safe"
My questions are...
Should we be singing safe instead of saved or can the original Hebrew be translated both ways?
Can we use safe and saved interchangeably because we who are saved are safe?
Romans 10:13 says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved...but it is the righteous who run into the strong tower????
I'm a little confused! Any wisdom would be appreciated.
I think it is so, so important that we get 'it' right with kids, there are so many rubbish songs out there for kids with incorrect theology in them. It really does matter what we are teaching the little ones.
The name of the Lord is a strong tower
The righteous run into it
and they are saved.
Now, Proverbs 18:10 says, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are safe"
My questions are...
Should we be singing safe instead of saved or can the original Hebrew be translated both ways?
Can we use safe and saved interchangeably because we who are saved are safe?
Romans 10:13 says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved...but it is the righteous who run into the strong tower????
I'm a little confused! Any wisdom would be appreciated.
I think it is so, so important that we get 'it' right with kids, there are so many rubbish songs out there for kids with incorrect theology in them. It really does matter what we are teaching the little ones.
posted by Dawn at 3:11 PM
5 Comments:
Good questions! The Hebrew word is a verb, not an adjective, but doesn't quite mean 'saved' or 'is safe'. The root is sgb and in this particular form (niphal) it means 'to be set up high', 'to be exalted', or 'to be high out of reach'. It's this last idea that gives rise to the translation 'safe'.
The potential problem with translating 'saved' is that this is a theologically loaded term which is usually indicated by different Greek or Hebrew words than the one we have here. Now, I think that the wider biblical context suggests that this proverb does also refer to this bigger understanding of salvation BUT that it does so in a way that gets the reader to make the link himself without laying it out explicitly. So I like the translation 'safe' which is suggestive without being unambiguous. Or we could translate 'safely out of reach'.
But none of those scan in your song! I don't think it's wrong to sing the song as it stands - this is certainly an implication of the verse. But maybe with small children, there's even more value in teaching songs that have the same text as the bible, so that they learn the scripture itself.
Hmm. Not sure I've given you an answer!
Sorry - just to add that I hope you do the actions!
I just noticed that I wrote 'different than.' I meant 'different from', of course. Must watch out for the creeping Americanisms!
Presumably doing the actions is one of the purposes of a paid children's worker, so that the rest of us don't have to?
Thanks Ros, that's a helpful explanation. And of course actions must accompany the song.
But Marc I as a 'paid children's worker' would expect other members of the church to be doing the actions, expecially the vicar. So you may not ever want to employ me in your church :-)
Talking of memory verse CD's for children, I do like '52 scripture songs for children with Ishmael'...it's great for adults too!!! Why as adults don't we learn scripture to music? Perhaps someone musical could write some tunes for scripture...I think we need to speak to Mr Towner, Mr Jeffers and Mr Jeffrey.
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