Photo by Jon Tyson
Hezekiah Walker is an American Gospel artist and head pastor of Love Fellowship Tabernacle in New York. Beginning with his career in 1985, he released 15 albums, with some under the name “Hezekiah Walker & The Love Fellowship Crusade Church Choir”. These include:
- I’ll Make It (1987)
- Oh Lord We Praise You (1990)
- Focus on Glory (1992)
- Live in Toronto (1993)
- Live in Atlanta at Morehouse College (1994)
- Live in New York by Any Means… (1995)
- Live in London (1997)
- Recorded Live at Love Fellowship Tabernacle (1998)
- Family Affair (1999)
- Love Is Live! (2001)
- Family Affair, Vol. 2: Live at Radio City Music Hall (2002)
- 20/85 The Experience (2005)
- Souled Out (2008)
- Azusa: The Next Generation (2013)
- Azusa: The Next Generation 2 – Better (2016)
Lyrics can be found at https://genius.com/Hezekiah-walker-every-praise-lyrics.
Note to new users: This is a different kind of review site! Read About the Berean Test and Evaluation Criteria prior to reading this review.
1. What message does the song communicate?
God is worthy of the praise that we offer in unison. He is Liberator, Physician, and Rescuer. Unlike many other songs I’ve reviewed lately, the focus is on praise and worship and not on His healings.
Side Note: To those who don’t prefer massive repetition, Chorus 1 repeats the same eight lines 4 times. Bridge repeats four lines 3 times. Chorus 2 opens like Chorus 1, except the phrase “every praise” repeats 14 times. This occurs two more times, except the final section repeats “every praise” eight times. Outro repeats it 13 times. Intermixed are several talking sections by Walker that don’t add nor take away from my commentary in section 2.
Score: 10/10
2. How much of the lyrics line up with Scripture?
The entire song is consistent with Scripture.
[Chorus 1]
Lines 1 and 2: All worship belongs to God alone (1 Chronicles 16:25, 2 Samuel 22:4, Psalm 96:4-5, Psalm 145:3, and Revelation 4:11), with us Christians worshipping with a singular voice (Romans 15:6).
Lines 3 and 4: Essentially repeats line 1.
Lines 5 and 6: The word ‘Hallelujah” is a compound Hebrew phrase, with “hallelu” meaning “a joyous praise in song” and “jah” or “yah”, which refers to the Tetragrammaton YHWH. Put together, we are singing “we joyfully praise God in song” when we use this word. Walker recommends that we sing this to God, that He deserves it (see lines 1 and 2).
Lines 7 and 8: Repeats lines 3 and 4.
Lines 9-32: Repeats lines 1-8.
[Bridge]
Lines 1-4: God is Savior, Deliverer (Isaiah 53:7-11, Matthew 1:21, John 1:29, Galatians 1:4, Galatians 3:13, 1 Timothy 2:6, Titus 2:14, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Peter 3:18, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 3:5, and Revelation 1:5), and Healer (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17, and Luke 5:31).
Lines 5-13: Repeats lines 1-4.
[Chorus 2]
Lines 1-27: Repeats Chorus 1, lines 1-3.
[Outro]
Lines 1-7: Repeats Chorus 1, line 3.
Score: 10/10
3. How would an outsider interpret the song?
This song only contains a few unique lyrics that are repeated over and over again, easily understood by unbelievers as Christian God worship. The words “hallelujah”, “Savior”, and “God” are giveaways that point them towards our direction.
Score: 10/10
4. What does this song glorify?
It glorifies God by identifying Him as worthy of praise, as well as our Savior and our Healer.
Score: 10/10
Closing Comments
Hezekiah Walker’s Every Praise is Biblical. It tells us that God is worthy of our worship, is our Savior, and our great Physician.
Congregations that are looking for a song that contains minimal, yet Biblical, lyrics on repeat may consider adding this classic to their worship set.
Final Score: 10/10
Artist Info
Track: Every Praise (listen to the song)
Artist: Hezekiah Walker
Album: Azusa: The Next Generation
Genre: Gospel
Release Year: 2013
Duration: 7:22
Agree? Disagree? Don’t be shy or have a cow! Calmly and politely state your case in a comment, below.
Updates:
02/15/2024 – Removed reference to “hip-hop flair” in Intro and “this song isn’t for me” in conclusion. Thanks to Emmanuel for pointing these out!
Comments
Emmanuel
Why isn’t it for you?
Vince Wright
Emmanuel,
Great question!
Primarily, its massive repetition.
-Vince Wright
Lindsey
Massive repetition of Gods word can only be edifying! I love this song as it makes my soul sing xx
Emmanuel
It’s taken me 3yrs to give this feedback so I hope it comes across and is received with the grace and love intended.
1. Describing his love fellowship albums as having a touch of hip hop shows a lack of appreciation or understanding of the breath and depth of gospel music. I’ll encourage you to read up on the history of and different strands of gospel music if you want to do a proper review.
2. My observation above is bolstered by the fact that a tiny fraction of the songs reviewed on your website are of the gospel genre and a couple of the few songs described as gospel aren’t gospel. Could it be a revelation of your overall preference or lack of familiarity with gospel? If so, this confirms my suggestion for you to learn more about gospel music before reviewing them.
3. Adding a comment “not for me though” introduces a subjective element to the whole review which defeats the purpose you stated as doing the reviews. Subjective opinions introduces our personal basis and idiosyncracies. If the goal is to review based on the Bible then our subjective thoughts shouldn’t matter or be factored in.
4. This thing about not liking repetition needs to be addressed. Are we better than the Angels who are repeatedly singing “Holy Holy” to the Lord? David and the sons of korah do a lot of repetitions in the psalms. Do we not like them too?
5. This is a general feedback for all your reviews. Songs are written for audiences. Is He Worrhy by C Tomlin was written purely for a church audience that understands the second coming theology. It’ll be unfair to use an unbeliever’s yardstick who has no idea of this as a standard. All songs are not evangelistic in nature. All songs are not meant for corporate worship and all songs are not meant for corporate worship.
All songs must be reviewed in context. Context varies. Context of rest of songs on album, context of album title, context of author’s goal, etc. Performing a review of a song in separation from the album is wrong and may lead to missing out of key underlining themes. Eg. Jireh, Talking to Jesus, should be reviewed in context of the album – Old Church Basement and the purpose of the album. We can’t interpret a song written for a specific purpose with a different yardstick. They’ll most likely fail.
6. The fact that a song doesn’t explicitly mention God should not reduce its rating. Esther and Song of Songs don’t explicitly mention God but we don’t reduce their veracity as sources of God’s word.
Vince Wright
Emmanuel,
Thank you for your comments!
1. You’re right, I don’t have a full understanding of the entire breath and depth of the Gospel Music genre. In light of your comment, I’ve removed the “hip-hop flair” portion of the review.
2. See concession in #1. I’m not sure if I’ll still get the genres 100% right even with a better understanding of what is “gospel” and what isn’t, but in the meantime, feel free to suggest genre changes for individual reviews so that I can correct them. Or better set, send me a full list in the “contact me” section.
3. I’ve removed “it’s not for me though” from conclusion.
4. The kind of repetition that I see in songs aren’t the “holy, holy” kind. That’s OK. There is a structure to Psalm 136, where the repeated phrase is on every other line. As though each added new line gives a new dimension. The kind of repetition that shows up in this song, as well as a few others, is the same phrase repeated over and over again. I realize that there is a degree of subjectivity to whether or not it’s appropriate in song lyrics. Those who don’t like it will appreciate the side notes. Those who don’t can ignore them. In either case, repetition doesn’t affect the rating.
5. Right, these are the drawbacks of a review site such as this one. These are reviews that are solely focused on a single song based on what it says, not necessarily artist’s intent or its placement inside a larger, cohesive album. I’m willing to accept the risks that come with it.
6. I don’t always look for explicit usage of proper names such as “God”/”Jesus”, etc. I also look for acts, attributes, at least SOMETHING that will tell us that whoever the “you” that the artist is telling us about is more than a mere human. Despite many reviews claiming failure on this one point, I have an extremely low bar for this. As far as I can tell, nowhere in Esther is there an unclear usage of the word “you” (or some other equivalent word) that is intended to be about God that refers to a human. However, there are plenty of songs that are about “you” that are intended to be about God and that, if played at Wal Mart as part of the background music, a reasonable unbeliever would assume that the song was about a human and not God. We can do better.
Finally, I noticed you tried to submit your comments three times. I removed the duplicates. I also apologize for not posting them quickly. I’m finding less and less time to complete a single review per week, much less time to read, review, and respond to comments.
-Vince Wright