From the time I heard Megan Daines speak about the “Hope of Israel” in this fantastic podcast I started to sing the song ”Hope of Israel“ around the house and play it on the piano. The kids heard me sing it so much that I began to hear them occasionally singing along. They had many of the words wrong but that happens when you don’t explicitly teach the words.
Well, one day I was walking home with my 3 year old son as we straggled along behind the rest of the family. I started to sing that song again but this time stopping after each line to hear him repeat after me. He doesn’t like being put on the spot but with just the 2 of us he joined in right away.
After each line I would stop and try to paint a visual picture of the words for him.
Hope of Israel, Zion’s Army, Children of the promised day. My kids have heard me tell them many times that we are a part of Jesus’s army. They are warriors who have been called to share the truth with the world. They know they are important and special. At one point (for maybe 4-5 months) every morning at breakfast we put armor on a little felt man we made. As we did we would state each piece of the armor and pretend to place it on ourselves-Helmet of Salvation. Shield of Faith. Sword of the Spirit. Breastplate of Righteousness. Loins girt about with truth. Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
See the chieftain signal onward
A chieftain is like a captain or a chief. They had recently watched Pocahantas so that was easy enough to visualize. We talked about a signal being something you use to say something when you can’t talk. You don’t use words. Sign Language is made of signals and you must SEE them. We talked about how a chief might use a signal if the army was too big to hear him. Maybe he would point towards the enemy to show we must move forward-onward. “Onward. ever onward, as we glory in his name.“🎵 The Chieftain is our prophet and he has clearly signaled all of us forward. We must be watching him to see. And the battle’s in array. Array means “Order; disposition in regular lines; as an army in battle array. Hence a posture of defense.” The Lord and His chosen chieftain are organized. They know what they are doing. They have plans. Hope of Israel, rise in might with the sword of Truth and Right. As most 3 year old boys my son liked this reference to a sword. They had heard me talk about the Sword of the Spirit and a sword of light but the sword of Truth and Right was new. The scriptures can teach us and sometimes prick our hearts and as is taught in the scriptures it can cut us to the very center because the guilty take the truth to be hard. As we study and learn the scriptures we can share them with others when the spirit directs us and it can be a weapon against Satan. Sound the warcry, watch and pray
We had fun shouting our own warcries. They sounded a lot like the Native American warcries from Pocahontas. Who would have thought that movie would have any extra value here? Ha. We talked about how a warcry might help give people courage if they were afraid or even serve as a signal like the Chieftain gave for the troops to follow-time to move forward to battle. “Watch and Pray”. Watch the Chieftain, Pray for courage, faith and skill (spiritual gifts) to be able to fight. Vanquish every foe today. Vanquish means: “To conquer; to overcome; to subdue in battle; as an enemy.” Overcome the temptations of the adversary. Only through the power of God can we do this.
Here is the video of them singing it. As always...this is real life. Ha.
Then we read this lovely article in the Millennial Instructor about the song and how it came to be. The kids really enjoyed it because we had already learned the song. Glad I did it in that order.
