Thread: God Sings!

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17, ESV)

I must confess, I don't remember running across this reference to God singing before. In one of his sermons I was reading, Spurgeon quoted this verse without giving the reference, and I was so intrigued I had to look it up. As far as I know, it's the only place in the Bible that describes God as singing.

(Note: I "corrected" the ESV by capitalizing the personal pronouns referring to God. Personally, I think that shows respect for Him. The bolding in the text is, of course, also mine.)

How delightful to know that God sings over us! What a blessing from the Word!

Update: Having discovered this verse, I excitedly showed it to my wife. It turns out that she quoted it back to me before I read it to her - she's known this verse for several years! Spoiled all my fun (heh, heh).

Originally Posted by bookslover

(Note: I "corrected" the ESV by capitalizing the personal pronouns referring to God. Personally, I think that shows respect for Him. The bolding in the text is, of course, also mine.)

How delightful to know that God sings over us! What a blessing from the Word!

Great "catch" on the singing; thanks. And the capitalized pronoun for God is one of the things that first drew me to the NASB.

Our former pastor used to call on our birthday's and share this verse with us, and then proceed to sing Happy birthday.

Neat, thanks for sharing!

Very thanks for sharing

I opened it up in my NASB Bible I keep at my desk and found that the last part of the verse is "He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy." instead. So I checked out a few other translations that I had in my Bible software or in print:

"he will be joyful over thee in praise." DRC (Vulgate)
"he will reioyce ouer thee with ioy." Geneva
"celebrates over you with shouts of joy." God's Word (pretty much a paraphrase; I used when I was young)

Any idea why the difference?

The Hebrew word:

רנּה
rinnâh
BDB Definition:
1) ringing cry
1a) of entreaty, supplication
1b) in proclamation, joy, praise
Part of Speech: noun feminine