Praise or Antiphonal Singing?: The Meaning of להודות Revisited

In the religious context, “to praise” is generally considered the essential meaning of להודות. However, this meaning is not present in the nominal form תודה; conversely, the sacrificial aspect of תודה is not expressed by the verbal form להודות. The present study demonstrates that the primary sense of להודות, from which all other meanings derive, most likely has to do with choral performance; specifically, the verb refers to the antiphonal mode of singing. Accordingly, the musical dimension of תודה/להודות may be more frequently expressed in the biblical cultic context than it is generally assumed. These findings stress the central importance of antiphonal performance in the worship of Yhwh and reveal that in Biblical Hebrew, the meaning of terms used in religious context cannot be simply extrapolated from the one they exhibit in secular context.