16) Mary, Did You Know - Part 2

Hello and welcome back to Learning English with Lyrics, the podcast where we break down English language song lyrics to help YOU improve your English. I am your host Jake, and today we are diving into verse 2 of the song "Mary Did You Know" originally performed by Michael English. If you've never listened to the podcast before, welcome! I'd recommend pausing right here, and listening to the episode titled "Introduction" so that you can get a good idea of how this podcast works before continuing. And if you are one of our regular listeners, thanks for listening! We would love to hear from you, so if you've been enjoying the podcast, send us a message and let us know! You might even get a shoutout on a future episode! And please don't forget to tell your friends about the podcast!

If you didn't listen to our last episode, I HIGHLY highly highly recommend pausing here and listening to it first. In that episode, we talked about verse 1 of this song, and we explained some of the background to the song that is absolutely crucial for understanding the lyrics. And with that, let's get started!

The next line of the song asks Mary "Did you know that he will give sight to a blind man?"

This line is pretty straightforward. Someone who is blind is someone who can't see. The ability to see is called "sight". So to "give sight" to a blind man, means to heal their blindness. This is another miracle that Jesus would do in the future.

The next line of the song says "Did you know that he will calm a storm with his hand?"

This is another one of Jesus' miracles. What does it mean to calm a storm? Well, storms can be rough and sometimes dangerous. The wind is blowing violently, and often there is lightning and thunder. When a storm has finally finished, you can say that the storm "calmed" or "calmed down". This is similar to what you might say about child who has just finished throwing a tantrum. Children and storms are a little bit too similar sometimes.

In this case though, the storm isn't calming on its own. It's Jesus who is doing the action of "calming" the storm. This would be similar to a mother or father "calming" their child who is throwing a tantrum or crying. They are helping him be calm. The song says that jesus "calms" the storm with his hand. The image is of Jesus raising his hand and the storm calms down simply because of that action. In the actual story, Jesus speaks to the storm and it calms, but this carries the same idea. Someone who is powerful enough that nature itself obeys what he says.

Our next line says "Did you know that he has walked where angels trod?"

We're not going to spend long on this one. The word "trod" here is very old word, and it isn't really used much anymore. In this context, we can replace it with the word "walked". "Did you know that Jesus has walked where angels have walked?" What is this saying? Well, angels "walk" in heaven. So the question is really asking Mary if she knew that Jesus came from heaven, which is of course where God lives.

This leads right into our next line, another statement that we can word as a question.

"Did you know that when you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God?"

This is a very powerful line, and really sums up our song well. This is the theme of our song, in a single line. On the one side, it talks about the humanity of Jesus, his human mother kisses his face like all mothers do. On the other hand, it's reminding her that this thing, this action that seems very normal is actually not very normal. She's actually kissing God's face, not just a baby. That's pretty intense!

The next section of the song is a quick break from the "question" format that we've seen so far. We are presented with a series of statements instead. These are, again, references to miracles that Jesus performed, and we're going to find some very interesting vocabulary in here as well.

The first line is simple, "The blind will see". Not much more to say there. This is speaking of Jesus' future again, and simply telling Mary that blind people will be healed by him.

The second line is almost identical, "the deaf will hear". Even if you don't know what "deaf" means, the context gives you a pretty big clue. A deaf person is somebody who can't hear. So Jesus will heal both blind people and deaf people.

The third line makes a jump to something even more extreme. "The dead will live again". This is in reference to at least two different events from Jesus' life. As we talked about last time, eventually Jesus sacrifices himself and he is killed. But, he comes back to life three days later.

When we talk about someone making something else alive, we generally use one of three words. "Raise", "Bring", or "Come".

Why do we use the word "raise"? We say, "He raised him from the dead" or "He was raised from the dead." This is because when someone is dead, we generally bury them. Traditionally, the dead are buried "six feet under", that is to say, we dig a hole that is six feet deep to place them in. So, in order to make someone alive again, they would have to be RAISED from the dead. Death is always below, and life is always above. To be "raised from the dead" is to be lifted up and away from where "the dead" are, which is below.

When we're talking about somebody becoming alive again after being dead, they are always going FROM death and going TO life.

So someone is raised FROM the dead, or they are brought BACK FROM the dead, or they come BACK FROM the dead. The first two mean that somebody or something made them alive again, the third one is more general, and doesn't tell us anything about how they came back from the dead, only that they did.

Conversely, you can be raised TO life, or brought BACK TO life or come BACK TO life. Again, the first two requires somebody or something doing the action to the person, and the third is more general.

Moving on, the next line is interesting as well, "the lame will leap". This isn't a word we use too often, "lame". In fact, if you've heard it, you've probably heard it to describe someone or something that's "not cool". For example, "That's so lame!", "He's so lame!", or "This is lame." In modern day English, this is probably the most common usage! But the word has an older meaning, which means someone who is unable to walk, usually due to a problem with their legs, such as an injury. We still use the word to mean this, but generally we don't describe people as lame anymore, because it might be taken as an insult. We might instead say "He is lame in both legs" or "That's my lame leg."

The word "leap" means a forceful jump, so if someone who couldn't use their legs before can jump, that's a miracle! They aren't just able to walk again, they can jump! They are fully healed. This is another reference to Jesus healing people miraculously.

The final one in this list says "The dumb will speak the praises of the lamb". Similar to the word "lame", this is another word with an older usage that we don't use very often nowadays. You've probably heard "dumb" to mean someone or something that is stupid. "This is dumb." "He's dumb." or "That's dumb." That's the most common usage today. But the older meaning is someone who can't speak. You might have read a book where someone was described as "deaf and dumb". The word "dumb" has become too insulting nowadays, so instead of saying that someone who can't speak is "dumb", we say that they are "mute." So the mute are speaking. This is, of course, another reference to the miracles of Jesus.

The mute are speaking "the praises of the lamb". But what are those? Well, to praise something is to talk about how great it is. For example, if you had a big project for work, and did really well, you might receive a lot of "praise" from your boss. She might say that you did a great job, that you're a great employee, etc...we often use the phrase "SING your praises" as in "your boss SANG your praises", which means they praised you a lot!

So why are the mute praising a sheep?

Well of course, this isn't just any old sheep, it's THE lamb. Who is THE lamb? You'll remember in yesterday's episode, we explained the  Jewish sacrificial system, where they would sacrifice a lamb for their sins. But for Christians, Jesus changed all of that by sacrificing himself for the sins of the world. Because of this, in the Bible, Jesus is often called "The Lamb of God". A famous verse in the Bible refers to Jesus as "The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!"

The last part of the song is a return to our question format.

The next line "Did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?"

A lord is someone who has some kind of power over others. Usually a ruler of some kind. It's an old term, but still used a bit today, especially in England. "THE Lord", however, is almost always a reference to God. The idea is that he is in charge of everything. You have "lords" and you have "THE Lord". "Creation" means "everything that has been created" which means "the universe". The Christian belief is that God created the universe and he is the Lord or ruler of all of it.

The next line is very similar, and asks Mary if she knew that Jesus would one day "rule the nations". "The nations" means "all the countries in the world". This might sound exactly like the previous line, but notice it's in the future tense. Notice the return of our phrase "one day". This is speaking of the Christian belief that one day Jesus himself will come back to earth to rule it.

The final question asks "Did you know that he is heaven's perfect lamb?"

This is the same thing that we discussed a few moments ago, another reference to Jesus as a lamb. "Heaven's lamb" means that he belongs to or comes from heaven. "Perfect lamb" refers to the idea that Jesus never sinned or did anything wrong, as we talked about in our last episode.

The final line in our song isn't a question, it just simply states "The sleeping child you're holding is the great I Am!"

This is probably a pretty confusing sentence. You're definitely familiar with the phrase "I am..." as in "I am a man" or "I am a waiter" or "I am tired". What does it mean that someone IS I am. The "great I Am" is speaking of God, who in the Bible refers to himself as simple "I Am".

There are many theories as to why this is, but I think it is a statement about his power. He is saying that he  simply IS. He exists and has existed and created everything. His being, who He is, is so far beyond simple questions like "Who are you?" Someone asks him, "Who are you?" and he says "I Am". So the song is saying that this tiny little baby boy, who seems so small and helpless, is actually God himself, the greatest and most powerful being that there is! That's a pretty big ending to our song.

Well, there was a LOT of information in this series. I hope you were able to absorb it all. Remember, you can always feel free to send questions to our Instagram or email, more information on that in a moment. Next time, we are starting a new song that I am VERY excited about. We are going to learn so many great words and phrases, and I hope that you'll join us! Merry Christmas everyone!

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