subject: The Use of Silence in the Worship Of God: An Old Testament Perspective [print this page] The Use of Silence in the Worship Of God: An Old Testament Perspective
We live in a noisy age. Every moment, a hundred trivialities cry out for our attention: commercials, alarm clocks, oven timers, telephones, radios, doorbells, car horns, and all the other instruments of the City of Dis, loud and wretched as the day Dante saw them on the lip of Hell. In the background, the screams of our jets, the drone of our freeways, the grind and clatter of our construction, and the rumble of our combined voices throb through our lives without rest.
Amid this technological din, many assume that cacophony must reign in the worship of the Church. Our television culture claims that it is bad taste to stop and consider anything very long. Human noise tears us back to "The Real World." Silence is alien. It makes us reflect, and we find this disturbing.
We are not used to being left alone with our thoughts. It calls our attention to things we prefer to forget. Silence is louder than all the sound and fury of the home, the street, and the workplace. When silence pushes the camouflage out of our minds, in comes a picture of the pointlessness, the littleness, the silliness, of the struggles of life. It makes the world small, and man a petty thing. This explains why even Christians in this culture tend to loathe moments in a worship service when there is no music, no sermon, no reading, no rustle of pages. When the pastor attempts to create a time of silence in the worship, throats are cleared, bodies squirm, and pews squeak. Modern Christians are afraid of the quiet. I sense that the noisy worship of the Church of our culture is robbing both itself and its Lord of a vital aspect of the knowledge of God.
For it is right that men should be afraid. God is nowhere more evident to the mind of man than when there is no noise at all, and the presence of God is not a light thing. Scripture records only three possible responses to the immediate, unveiled presence of God. The first is terrified agony, screaming, weeping, gnashing of teeth. The second is pure seraphic praise, shouts of joy, hymns of thanksgiving, cries of exultant triumph. The third, which always precedes either of the others, is abject silence, in paralyzing fear. All worship involves some attempt to enter into the presence of God. It is not education. It is confrontation. We learn, but that is incidental. All the erudition which belongs behind a sermon, a diligence in scholarship which should vastly exceed all others, is intended only secondarily to teach; its primary purpose is to escort visitors into the Throne room of the Almighty, where the King shall display his judgements and joys, and the people, astounded, shall stare.
A brief look at the Biblical usage of the concept of silence will show us what attitude God expects from his worshipers, and how to bring ourselves back into that attitude before him. Since much of the Biblical information on how to worship is found in the Old Testament, we shall confine our discussion to a brief consideration of the Old Testament usage of various Hebrew terms for silence.
The Hebrew Bible uses several terms to speak of the concept of silence. One of these is the root D-M-M, which carries the idea of being dumb, silent, or still. In some forms it is more forceful, meaning "to be struck dumb, astounded, in amazement," or even, "to be stupefied." Motionlessness, as well as soundlessness, is implied. Job uses D-M-M to describe the respectful attitude of those who listened to his counsel when he was regarded as an important man (Job 23:21-22). He seems to say that this is the silence that is owed to a superior when he is talking. Job's high rank among men caused them to be silent when he spoke. This use shows a connection between silence and respect.
Jeremiah uses it twice in Lamentations. In 2:10 it refers to the silence of repentant and despairing exiles: "The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have sprinkled dust on their heads and put on sackcloth." In 3:28 the context is a young man's long and lonely wait for the end of punishment: "Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it [the exile] on him." The burden of both of these passages is closely tied up in worship; it is a prayerful silence before God in light of human sin. There is a dual picture when the passages are juxtaposed: broken despair because of sin shuts the mouth, but the sinner waits in silence before God because he hopes for forgiveness. These uses draw out a connection between silence and repentance.
Several uses of D-M-M in the Psalms revolve around "being still before the Lord in quiet meditation." Ps. 4:4 links silence with self-examination: "In your anger do not sin; search your hearts and be silent." This is a word to the righteously indignant. When you get ready to lash out against your brother for his sin, look first at your own heart, and be quiet. Ps. 131:2 displays a spirit of quietness in view of God's total care for everything: Why should I be distressed about the world? In the same vein, Ps. 37:7: "Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him." There is a connection between silence and contentment.
We see in the use of D-M-M, then, three important connections which would greatly enhance our worship if taken seriously. First, there is a connection between silence and respect. This gives us the opportunity to know and assume our rightful position before an infinite God, letting Him speak while we listen.
Second, there is a connection between silence and repentance. This forces us to consider the depth and reality of the gap between the terrible pollution of our own souls and the stupefying purity of the Lord of Hosts. It reinforces the healthy humility brought about by the first idea.
Third, there is a connection between silence and contentment. This creates an atmosphere in which complaining is excluded, in which the soul truly conceives of itself as "in God," and therefore knows the profoundest of peace.
Another term in this semantic field is the root H-S-H, "Hush!" Two of its uses in the Prophets are particularly applicable to our situation. The famous reference in Habakkuk 2:20, "But the Lord is in His holy temple; hush before him, all the earth!" falls within the context of a titanic judgement scene. The Prophet pronounces an oracle of doom on all nations that forget God. It is interesting to note the literary flow of the oracle, from the repetition of "Woe woe woe" upon the various sinful and deceitful practices of the wicked, directly into their worship life, which consisted in deceived idiolatry. Habakkuk shows the relationship between immorality and idolatry, and then strikes the contrast between idols and the Lord's holy temple.
Against the babbling insanity of idolatrous worship, the True and Living God thunders out from that place thrice holy, HUSH! When the Lord of Judgment sits upon the seat of His power, ready to put the peoples to His perfect test of righteousness, deathly silence falls upon the whole planet. Man's billions wait in terror for the outcome. God is here: We are hopelessly ruined! Then Zechariah 2:13 picks up the theme of a holy God rising to judgement, and says, "Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling." The immediate context is a reversal of the terror theme of Habakkuk. Zechariah speaks in verse 10 of the shouts of joy taken up by the righteous when the Lord comes in judgement upon the nations. But while calling for the Daughter of Zion to "Shout and be gladfor I am coming, and I will live among you", the Lord sees to it that the whole world is confronted with the enormity of the situation: "Be still before the Lord, all mankind."
Thus, the prophetic command to "Hush!" draws the fourth and most important connection: the connection between human silence and God's holiness. When confronted with the awesome and Holy character of God, we are amazed, astounded, stupefied, and very, very silent. When a finite and sinful man enters the presence of an infinite and holy God, a cosmic confrontation takes place. There, as in the vision of Isaiah 6, stands a God thrice holy, at whose voice universes leap into being, by whose breath worlds are melted away. Here, as Job says of himself, is a worm and not a man. The crossing of this ineffable gulf is what is called worship. Here we participate in the face to face presence of a perfect God. We must not take this lightly. This is an awesome thing. It is therefore vital that our entrance into the Holy be a silent one. Our true confession and praise can only come out of a heart which has known the soundless awe of the Presence. If worship is only a noise among noises, it is a stench to God. If it is a sweet song of joy rising out of an amazed silence, both we and God will be pleased. Our prior state of quiet will begin to help us relate to the respected, the receiver of repentance, the rest of our souls, and finally, to the perfection of infinite holiness.
