do something that the church could sing over itself and declare , that although things look crazy , Jesus is never intimidated by a crazy or hard situation or by people in bondage . Jesus said , “ I come to declare that this is the acceptable year of the Lord , this is the time of Jubilee ”. That ’ s what He came to establish . And when He did that I believe that things actually became free . So , the song is the declaration that , no , this is our time of jubilee . This is a moment of freedom , and that ’ s what the song is declaring unashamedly . We ’ re going to keep singing this , we ’ re going to keep declaring this because it is our reality and if we don ’ t walk in it … then were missing so much of what God is doing in us .
[ WM ] Naomi , you and Maryanne lead the song “ God of Israel ”. The lyrics proclaim , “ You run across the heavens , to help the ones you
God of Israel
love , and in Your majestic splendor , you lift us up ”. What a beautiful lyric ! What can you tell us about this song ?
[ Naomi ] Okay , I have to tell you first that this is one of my favorite songs that I ’ ve ever written in my life . In Deuteronomy 33:26 , that is literally the language in the text , and this is Moses speaking to the people about who God is . It says , “ There is no one like the God of Israel who rides across the heavens to help you and on the clouds in majestic splendor .” And it goes on to say that our help is in Him , that ’ s where we get all that we need . And so , these were the last words Moses said to the children of Israel before he was taken up to be with the Lord and not able to enter into the Promised Land .
It was just important to me . I feel like to a people that were enslaved , and the Lord had brought through a process that these were the words that Moses said to them . We wrote with Adele and feel like it was important that we sing that over a people who feel like , “ We ’ ve been through so much . We ’ ve been through this whole pandemic .” What we ’ re seeing with the racial stuff , and there are a lot of people who are hurting because it brought up so much , so many memories and so much pain . I want you to remember who our God is , I want you to remember that He is the God who delivers ,