When we were first brought to the America's the slave master didn't find it fit to teach us Christianity. If he did he would have to acknowledging that we were human, and that was something he couldn't do. Over a period of time, the slave master decided to teach our people a few things about Christianity. But he only taught them from the New Testament (just as many Christians continue to do today). Slave owners forbidden the slaves to read or hear "old testament" bible books, such as Exodus and others.
But those first slave songs had many old testament themes to them such as "Let My People Go", My home is over Jordan, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot and so on. The slave master didn't teach them this, as a matter of fact in some parts of the country those "Slave songs" were outlawed (it also was against the law to teach a slave how to read and write especially the bible). Our people were singing about something that they were familiar with, and this was "old testament" history, a history which had by then become oral history passed on from one generation to the next.
The slave song KumbaYAH is Hebrew, it's saying "come by here, Yah come by here". YAH is a shorten form of God's name in Hebrew. So how did our people know about Yah, Moses and all the other Hebrew themes if they were not Hebrews upon their arrival?
If you pick up and read any book on slavery in the United States, You will see that the slaves would call the slave owner MASSA not MASTER but MASSA. We have been taught that the slaves were speaking broken English, so they would pronounce MASSA instead of master because of their dialect. That's not the whole truth, MASSA is a Hebrew word that means burden / oppressor (strong's concordance 4853, 4854). Those slave masters put heavy burdens on the slaves, so the slaves called them Massa for that reason.
Many Christians were also surprised to learn that these so called "ungodly savages" awaited a messiah, long before the arrival of the first European Gentiles.
Prov. 3:31-32
31 Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.
32 For the froward is abomination to the Lord: but his secret is with the righteous.
Link to YT Video:
https://youtu.be/mBLseBapVfE
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