A God Who Sings

There is a particular quiet that falls over our house once the children are finally down; silence, save maybe for the dishwasher humming and sound machines whirring. At the very end of a book full of thunder and warning, into a moment of silence like that, Zephaniah says something almost embarrassing in its tenderness: the LORD your God is in your midst; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Not tolerate. Not, at long last, forgive. Sing.

If we're honest, I bet for most of us, in those quiet moments alone, it's not God's singing we hear. It's more likely we hear the whisper of fear and failure ringing faintly in our ears. Yes, the big fears and failures, but also more subtle accusations: the patience we didn't have, the prayer we didn't pray, the person we meant to call. We assume that whatever God feels toward us at the end of a day like that is, at best, a kind of weary tolerance. So we become people who sing to God. Strainers. Strivers. We keep the music formal, and we keep it going in his direction.

But in Zephaniah, the music runs the other way: God is the one singing.

Zephaniah has just told us over whom this song is sung — not the proud city he has spent the whole book confronting, but "a people humble and lowly" (3:12), a meek remnant purified by fire, left standing after every claim to have earned God's approval had burned away (3:11-13). This is not a song for the deserving; it's a song over the humbled.

Read the verse slowly. Like a precious jewel in our palm, its depth and beauty emerge with different angles of light. The verb is not restrained. The Hebrew behind "he will rejoice" is yasis, drawn from a root for a joy so full it can hardly hold still — an almost physical gladness. And "he will exult" is yagil, paired here with rinnah, the ringing shout of a wedding feast or a victory won, the sound a crowd makes when it cannot stay quiet. This is not composed approval; it is joy that moves the body, it's a raised voice or an un-contained shout. He does not merely approve; he exults — the word you'd use for a wedding, for a team that has won, for a father who cannot keep it in. In other words, this is not composed applause; it's the joyful, undignified sound of a Father who cannot help himself, bending down over one ordinary, exhausted life — and humming. As Tim Keller has said, reflecting on Isaiah's own picture of divine tenderness, God's attachment to his people exceeds even the strongest bond we know — a mother's love for the child at her breast (Tim Keller, "Can a Mother Forget?", gospelinlife.com). The God who quiets us is not quieting a threat. He is quieting a child.

But how can the God of Zephaniah's thunder sing a lullaby to those whose lives give him so little reason to rejoice?

Zephaniah may have the note, but Bethlehem had the song — it was there that the eternal Word came close, his song the simple coo of a baby for a time. But in Jesus, the voice of God could finally be heard — not from a mountain wrapped in smoke, not through a prophet standing at a distance, but in the cry of a baby, the laughter of a boy, the compassion of a man, the words of a teacher, the touch of a Savior.

In Gethsemane, he sweat blood at the foretaste of God's silence. Then, as Isaiah said: "like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (53:7). The Son was silent. And on the cross, Jesus could not hear his Father's song. Something of that silence is a mystery we can only stand before, not fully explain — but Scripture will not let us say the Father's love for the Son ever wavered, even as the Son, bearing our place under the covenant curse, felt himself forsaken. He experienced, in his own real anguish, the silence we deserved, so that we could receive the song.

And so the tired, formulaic music we send heavenward is answered by a melody — older, gladder, and aimed at us. One day the humming will fill every room. We will finally hear His song.