Reference: Hymns
Fausets
Hebrew tehillim; in direct praise to God (Ac 16:25; Jas 5:13). Not restricted to church worship; but used to exhilarate Christians in social parties. "Psalms," mizmor, were accompanied with an instrument, carefully arranged. "Songs," Greek oodai, Hebrew shir, were joyous lyric pieces on sacred subjects; contrast the reveling, licentious songs of pagan feasts (Am 8:10). The accompaniment is the "melody of the heart," not the lyre. Tertullian (Apology, 39) records that at the love feasts (agapae), after the water was furnished for the hands and the lights lit, according as any remembered Scripture or could compose (compare 1Co 14:26, "improvised psalms"), he was invited to sing praises to God for the general good. The heart is the seat of true psalmody, "singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19).
Some generally accepted confession, in the form of a hymn, appears in 1Ti 3:16; the short unconnected sentences, with words similarly arranged, almost in the same number of syllables, the clauses in parallelism (the principle of Hebrew versification) antithetically arranged, each two forming a pair which contrasts heaven and earth, the order reversed in each new pair, flesh and spirit, angels and Gentiles, world and glory; the first and the last clauses correspond, "manifested in the flesh. .. received up into glory." So Pliny, 1:10, ep. 97: "the Christians are wont on a fixed day, before dawn, to meet and sing a hymn in alternate responses to Christ as God." Christ and His disciples sang a hymn after the Passover and the Lord's supper (Mt 26:30; Mr 14:26). Probably it was the Great Hallel or paschal hymn, usually sung after the Passover by the Jews, namely, Psalm 113-118.
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And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation, and I will cause sackcloth to be put upon all loins and baldness [for mourning] shall come on every head; and I will make that time as the mourning for an only son, and the end of it as a bitter day.
But about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the [other] prisoners were listening to them,
What then, brethren, is [the right course]? When you meet together, each one has a hymn, a teaching, a disclosure of special knowledge or information, an utterance in a [strange] tongue, or an interpretation of it. [But] let everything be constructive and edifying and for the good of all.
Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [ and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord,
Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home [in your hearts and minds] and dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts.
And great and important and weighty, we confess, is the hidden truth (the mystic secret) of godliness. He [ God] was made visible in human flesh, justified and vindicated in the [Holy] Spirit, was seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, [and] taken up in glory.
Is anyone among you afflicted (ill-treated, suffering evil)? He should pray. Is anyone glad at heart? He should sing praise [to God].
Morish
These occur in this order: 'psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.' Eph 5:19; Col 3:16. The word 'psalms' is the same as the Greek ???????; so the word 'hymns,' ??????; for 'spiritual songs' it is ?.???? ????????????, spiritual odes or songs. There can be no doubt that the Psalms of David had been used by the devout of Israel as songs of praise, and some of these may have been used in the early church, such as Psalm 23, Psalm 103, etc., which in substance have found their way into nearly all modern hymnals.
But the new dispensation required new songs of praise, and some may have been written that retained the name of psalms; others were called hymns, which apply to those compositions which are addressed to the Father or the Son, or directly to God. The word used for 'songs' is employed in Re 5:9 for the song of the redeemed; and in Re 14:3 for the new song; and in Re 15:3 for the song of Moses, the sentiments of which are often repeated in the Psalms: cf. also Ex 15:1-19; De 32:1-44.
It will be noticed that the passages in Ephesians and Colossians do not refer to singing in the assembly, and the one in Colossians may be punctuated thus: "in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." The Lord sang a hymn with His disciples at the last passover; and we may be sure that there was singing in the assemblies. The heathen Pliny bore testimony that the Christians sang 'odes to Christ as God.' Christ is twice represented as praising God, in the midst of His congregations, that is, in the assembly, and in the great congregation of Israel and those associated with them. Ps 22:22,25. Among hymns generally it is easy to see that some are hymns of praise; others recount what God has done; others speak of what Christ has suffered; others refer to future blessing; and again others are really prayers.
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Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord, saying, I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider or its chariot has He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my Strength and my Song, and He has become my Salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father's God, and I will exalt Him. read more. The Lord is a Man of War; the Lord is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host has He cast into the sea; his chosen captains also are sunk in the Red Sea. The floods cover them; they sank in the depths [clad in mail] like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power; Your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of Your majesty You overthrow those rising against You. You send forth Your fury; it consumes them like stubble. With the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood fixed in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. You [Lord] blew with Your wind, the sea covered them; [clad in mail] they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders? You stretched out Your right hand, the earth's [sea] swallowed them. You in Your mercy and loving-kindness have led forth the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation. The peoples have heard of it; they tremble; pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Now the chiefs of Edom are dismayed; the mighty men of Moab [renowned for strength], trembling takes hold of them; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away -- "little by little. Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of Your arm they are as still as a stone -- "till Your people pass by and over [into Canaan], O Lord, till the people pass by whom You have purchased. You will bring them in [to the land] and plant them on Your own mountain, the place, O Lord, You have made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established. The Lord will reign forever and ever. For the horses of Pharaoh went with his chariots and horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the Israelites walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.
Give ear, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb. read more. For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He. They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish -- "a perverse and crooked generation! Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]? Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites. For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye. As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions. So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him. He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock, Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape. But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God -- "to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared. Of the Rock Who bore you you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth. And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters. And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them. They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust. From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men, Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord. For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them. O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate! How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up? For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this. For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers. Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily. For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants' sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free. And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge, Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection! See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand. For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever, If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me. I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the foe. Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people. And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea (Joshua) son of Nun.
I will declare Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise You.
My praise shall be of You in the great congregation. I will pay to Him my vows [made in the time of trouble] before them who fear (revere and worship) Him.
Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [ and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord,
Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home [in your hearts and minds] and dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish and train one another in all insight and intelligence and wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts.
And [now] they sing a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to break the seals that are on it, for You were slain (sacrificed), and with Your blood You purchased men unto God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
And they sang a new song before the throne [of God] and before the four living creatures and before the elders [of the heavenly Sanhedrin]. No one could learn [to sing] that song except the 144,000 who had been ransomed (purchased, redeemed) from the earth.
And they sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying, Mighty and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God the Omnipotent! Righteous (just) and true are Your ways, O Sovereign of the ages (King of the nations)!