Praise His Name with Dancing - Psalms 149-150

 Psalms 149:3 (ESV)

3 Let them praise his name with dancing,

making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!

Praise His Name with Dancing 

Most believers in Christ, don’t dance.  What a shame!!  Like other things created by God, the world has taken the “dancing” concept to a level that those who are believers, to be “separate” from the world, avoid the worship of dance.  It is not part of our worship service.  Even in churches were a dance is part of the worship, we don’t often find Biblical teaching at the center.   We, mankind, have turned dancing into a work of the flesh and not the work of the spirit.   We are not the first to do this.  Notice when Moses went up to the mountain to get the Ten Commandments, Aaron created a golden calf to worship and the celebrated with dance.   That is what Moses saw when came down from the mountain:

Exodus 32:19 (ESV)

19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Interestingly enough, when the nation conquer Egypt and they Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, Moses sang and song and ... 

Exodus 15:20 (ESV)

20 Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

Dancing to worship God is something we have been commanded to do in this psalm.   We don’t know who wrote this song, but David wrote many and David has quite a connection with dancing.

He danced in victory over his enemies:

1 Samuel 18:6 (ESV)

6 As they were coming home, when David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments.

He danced to glorify God:

2 Samuel 6:16 (ESV)

David and Michal

16 As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.

David even wrote that God turned his sadness into a dance: 

Psalms 30:11 (ESV)

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;

you have loosed my sackcloth

and clothed me with gladness,

Jeremiah, in the book of Lamentations, notes that one of the downfalls of Israel when they were taken captive was the inability to dance:

Lamentations 5:15 (ESV)

15 The joy of our hearts has ceased;

our dancing has been turned to mourning.

We probably can’t get up in church and start dancing down the isle.    Too many would create a conflict over such worship.  But, that should not limit us in the idea of dancing for worship.   This psalm commands us to do so.