December
13

“Blessed is the Lord God of Israel”

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and worked redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning, Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; to do mercy with our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would give to us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice in His sight, all the days of our life. And thou, little child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; to give the knowledge of salvation to His people for the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; to appear to them who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:67‒79)

“To praise God” means to confess God and from confession of heart to worship Him.(Apocalypse Explained 1210)

That “to sing a song” denotes to glorify, and that thus a “song” denotes a glorification, is because in the Ancient Church and afterward in the Jewish Church the songs were prophetic and treated of the Lord, especially that He would come into the world, and would overthrow the diabolical crew, then raging more than ever, and would liberate the faithful from their assaults. And because the prophetic utterances of the songs contained such things in the internal sense, therefore by these is signified a glorification of the Lord, that is, a celebration of Him from gladness of heart; for gladness of heart is especially expressed by a song, because in a song gladness breaks forth as it were of itself into sound. (Arcana Coelestia 8261)

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