The Herald Angels Do Not Sing
There is a beautiful old song, often heard around the holidays, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” It was written sometime in the eighteenth century and is based on Luke 2:8-14, which explains its connection to Christmas. But I have to ask a question, “Do the angels actually sing?” You might be shocked, but according to the Bible, they don’t. I guess it all depends on which translation of the Bible you read. I am sure in some translations angels actually sing, but in Hebrew and Greek they typically don’t. When I started researching this question, I was surprised to see that angels often express themselves vocally, but it's not exactly called singing.
There are close to 300 passages in the Bible that mention angels: 135 in Hebrew and the rest in Greek. Out of all these verses in the Bible, only two passages come close to depicting angels as singing. And I mean, close, but even those references aren't that straightforward. If you want to look at the evidence, I will lay out the case and show you why I can’t prove that angels actually sing. Don’t worry, I will cite only a few examples and summarize the facts.
In Genesis 16:9-10; 22:11, 15; 31:11; 48:16, angels “speak” and sometimes “declare” (Ex 3:2; Jud 2:1-4). In a famous vision in Isaiah 6:1-3, the seraphim (שְׂרָפִים) "call" or "cry." The LXX renders their voices as cries (ἔκραζον; ekrazon). The Hebrew verb used in the passage is קָרָא (qara) “to call.” Their praise is not explicitly a “song” in Isaiah 6:3 either. In Ezekiel’s vision, the “living creatures” (חַיּוֹת; chai’yot) are described as moving and making sound, and a voice is heard, but no melodic singing. In Psalms, the angels often “praise” (הללוּ; hallel), but this Hebrew verb does not necessarily mean melodic performance. (Ps 148:104).
Job 38:7 says in English: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (NASB). This is the clearest biblical passage where angelic beings are described with a verb that can be rendered “sang.” The verb is yiriau (יָרִיעוּ), which means they “shouted,” “jubilated,” or even “sang” in a poetic sense. Though this is not a typical term for singing, this poetic expression is probably the best single biblical witness to the “singing” of angels in the entire Hebrew Bible. That’s about as close as we will come to proving the case for now.
Pinchas Shir
