Dear Amy,
How can our hearts make melody to the Lord?
… be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart …
― Ephesians 5:18b-19
The Greek word here translated melody appears in only three other places in the New Testament. Here’s one.
As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.”
― Romans 15:9
This relates to one of David’s psalms of deliverance.
The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation⸺the God who … rescued me from my enemies … . For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name.
― Psalm 18:46-49
After more than 30 years of reading the NIV 1984, I have recently switched to the ESV, a more literal translation, and I am loving both the precision and the freshness. And so I’ve noticed something here. David will sing to the Lord’s name. What does that mean?
Recall that the Lord’s name is his character, his reputation, the essence of who he is and what he is like. And what is that? Moses once asked exactly this, and behold:
The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped.
― Exodus 34:5-8
Moses’ response is the only one possible⸺a heart-response of worship and adoration, a song to the Creator God of the universe, to the one who loves us, who is our rescuer, our rock and our redeemer.
My heart is an instrument of love, and this is the melody I can make to the name of the one who loves you and me both with boundless, unfathomable love, to all that he is and all that he has done.
Sing and make melody to the Lord with your heart, Amy, to the one who has rescued us and loves us beyond imagining! 🙏