The Song of Redeeming Love

In Alma 5, Alma-2 delivers a masterful sermon to the people of Zarahemla.  He begins his address by reminding them of the captivity of their fathers and their subsequent deliverance. A few points about this:

1. In speaking about this, he is obeying the words of the angel (see Mosiah 27:16).
2. He begins his instructions to his son Helaman in a similar manner (see Alma 36:2).
3. Immediately following his reminder of the captivity (both physical and spiritual) of the fathers and their miraculous deliverance, he mentions that "they did sing redeeming love." (Alma 5:9).

It is this last point that I want to discuss in more detail in this post.  The context here is noteworthy: Alma connects miraculous deliverance with singing a song of redeeming love.  There is a long-standing connection in Jewish culture between these two concepts.

This excellent post at "The Lunch is Free" discusses the connections between Alma-2's references to the "song of redeeming love" and Old Testament and ancient Jewish traditions about deliverance.  Read it all the way to the end to see the connection to Doctrine & Covenants 84.

The post also links to this page, which describes songs of redemption in antiquity:

We don't sing when we are frightened, despairing, sleepy, or after a heavy meal. We sing when we are pining after one whom we love, when we are yearning for better times, when we are celebrating an achievement or anticipating a revelation. 

We don't sing when we are complacent. We sing when we are striving for something, or when we have tasted joy and are climbing it to the heavens. 

Song is prayer, the endeavor to rise above the petty cares of life and cleave to one's source. Song is the quest for redemption. 

The Midrash enumerates ten preeminent songs in the history of Israel — ten occasions on which our experience of redemption found expression in melody and verse. The first nine were: the song sung on the night of the Exodus in Egypt (Isaiah 30:29), the "Song at the Sea" (Exodus 15:1-21), the "Song at the Well" (Numbers 21:17-20), Moses' song upon his completion of writing the Torah (Deuteronomy 32), the song with which Joshua stopped the sun (Joshua 10:12-13), Deborah's song (Judges 5), King David's song (II Samuel 22), the song at the dedication of the Holy Temple (Psalms 30), and King Solomon's Song of Songsextolling the love between the Divine Groom and His bride Israel. 

The tenth song, says the Midrash, will be the shir chadash, the "New Song" of the ultimate redemption: a redemption that is global and absolute; a redemption that will annihilate all suffering, ignorance, jealousy, and hate from the face of the earth; a redemption of such proportions that the yearning it evokes, and the joy it brings, require a new song — a completely new musical vocabulary — to capture the voice of Creation's ultimate striving.