March 08, 1997

EL-SHADDAI

I had stopped at the small First Baptist Church in Hampstead, NC for the evening service. The pastor invited me to speak for about ten minutes to the small group. When I finished, a small boy of around seven and his father with a guitar came up front to do a song before the offering was collected. You could have sworn that somehow things had been set up to coincide with my being there but of course it wasn't. I had only gotten to the church about ten minutes before the service started.

I was a bit floored when the father started to play the first chords of a song that seemed to have a Jewish beat to it. I wasn't expecting what was going to happen next because I was brought almost to tears when the boy started to sing. In his small but clear voice, the boy started to sing in Hebrew.

His pronunciation of the Hebrew was almost perfect. The song was "EL SHADDAI". It had been written by Michael Card and John Thompson back in 1981. There were five verses (four more verses that I knew about). By the second verse, I almost wanted to jump up and start to dance the Hora to it because it was so good.

I wondered if anybody else was so moved. I didn't want the song to end. All the aches in my body after riding sixty-five miles seemed to melt away. Here's the first verse and English translation.

"El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyon, na Adonai, Age to age you're still the same, By the power of your name. El-Shaddai, El Shaddai, Er kahm-ka, na Adonai, We praise and lift you high El Shaddai."

"G-D Almighty, G-D Almighty, Most High G-D, O L-RD, Age to age you're still the same, By the power of your name. G-D Almighty, G-D Almighty, We will love you, O L-RD, We praise and lift you high G-D Almighty."