Volume. XX, No. 5
Sunday, 31 July 2005


From the Pastors Heart: Worship Dance Phenomena - Part 2


I have read through the Scriptures to find every reference that has a word related to dance such as dance, danced, dances, or dancing. There are 27 occurrences of those words in 26 verses. They are dance (8 times), danced (6 times), dances (6 times), and dancing (7 times). I am going to give you a chart I made in order to show you certain uses and patterns of those words.

References Original words* English words Who danced? What occasion? Parsing**
Ex. 15:20 1(H)/1(G) Dances Miriam/ women Crossing Red Sea Noun/feminine plural (NFP)
Ex. 32:19 1/1 Dancing People idolatry NFP
Judg. 11:34 1/1 Dances Jephthah’s daughter Victory NFP
Judg. 21:21 2/2
1/1
To dance
Dances
Daughter of Shiloh Feast Infinitive
NFP
Judg. 21:23 2/2 Danced (V) Daughter of Shiloh feast Participle feminine/plural
1 Sam. 18:6 1/ Dancing Women Victory NFP
1 Sam. 21:21 2/1 Dances Women Victory NFP (H)
Participle/ present active/ nominative/ feminine/ plural (G)
1 Sam. 29:5 1/1 Dances Women Victory NFP
1 Sam. 30:16 3/3 Dancing Amalekites Spoils Participle/masculine
/plural
2 Sam. 6:14 4/4 Danced David Bring the ark Participle/masculine
/singular [PMS]
2 Sam. 6:16 4/4 Dancing David Bring the ark PMS
1 Chron. 15:29 5/5 Dancing David Bring the ark PMS
Job 21:11 5/6 Dance Children Joy imperfect 3rd person masculine plural [Ipf3MP]
Psalm 30:11 1/1 dancing Psalmist Joy Noun/masculine/
Singular [NMS]
Psalm 149:3 1/1 dance People of Israel Praise NMS
Psalm 150:4 1/1 Dance People in general Praise NMS
Eccle. 3:4 5/5 To dance In general Joy infinitive
Isa. 13:21 5/5 Dance (V) Wild beasts Judgments Ipf3MP
Jer. 31:4 1/7 Dances Virgin of Israel Feast NMS
Jer. 31:13 1/synagogue*** Dance Virgin Joy NMS
Lam. 5:15 1/1 dance In general Joy NMS
Mat. 11:17 /5 Have danced Preachers unclear indicative aorist middle deponent 2nd person plural
Mat. 14:6 /5 Danced Herodias’ daughter feast indicative aorist middle deponent 3rd person singular
Mark 6:22 /5 Danced Herodias’ daughter Feast participle aorist middle deponent genitive feminine singular
Luke 7:32 /5 Have danced Preachers unclear indicative aorist middle deponent 2nd person plural
Luke 15:25 /1 dancing Household feast noun genitive masculine plural

*The following words are both Hebrew and Greek words you can find from the second column. The first number is from Hebrews and the second from Greek.

Hebrew words *Greek words
1. machola 1. chros
2. chul 2. chreuo
3. chagag 3. heortazo
4. karar 4. anakrouo
5. raqar 5. orcheomai
6. prospaizo
7. paizo

**This last column has grammatical analyses of those Hebrew and Greek words.
***There is no equivalent Greek word for the Hebrew word in this particular verse. Only word that might be a translation for dance in Hebrew is “synagogue” in the verse.

This chart is helpful to analyse the meanings and uses of words translated as dance, dances, danced, or dancing. I would like to bring your attention to the fifth column on occasions of dance. One striking observation from this column is that dancing is not related to either tabernacle or temple worship. The second observation is that none of the dancers in these verses was a priest who was responsible for tabernacle or temple worship (see the fourth column). If anyone wants to raise an objection to my previous points, he will say that David brought the ark of covenant to Jerusalem. He may say that it was an act of worship. It is a good point. However, I must let you wait till next week to hear my answer to it.

Lovingly,

Your pastor


More Lively Hope

 

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