Songs

Sacred song pervades Scripture from the earliest periods. The Song of Moses after the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 15) is the first great hymn of redemption; it is followed by the song at the well (Num. 21:17), Moses's farewell Song of the Law (Deut. 32), Deborah's victory ode (Judg. 5), Hannah's prayer-song (1 Sam. 2), and David's great psalm of deliverance (2 Sam. 22). The Psalter — the Song Book of Israel — collects one hundred and fifty compositions spanning the full range of human experience before God, and was the hymnal of both the temple and the synagogue.

The New Testament continues this tradition: Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), Zechariah's Benedictus (Luke 1:68–79), and the angels' Gloria (Luke 2:14) are all liturgical songs. Revelation presents the church triumphant singing the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb (Rev. 15:3), linking the final redemption to the first. Paul instructs believers to address one another in "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16), making corporate singing central to Christian worship.