The Powerful Meaning of the Word Hallelujah

A musician plays the secret chord, it goes like this: the minor fall, the major lift the baffled king composing Hallelujah.

A young man enters into a spacious sanctuary designed for maximum acoustical effect and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah rings forth.

The sweaty preacher interjects a few “amens” and “hallelujah’s” in where those verbal pauses likely would have been filled with curse words instead of praises a few years prior.

Hallelujah! We hear this word used everywhere in art, music, and culture today but where did the word "hallelujah" come from and what does it mean?

What is the real meaning and origin of Hallelujah?

The worship leader introduces the song for the morning and says, “Alright, y’all let’s stand up and praise the Lord.” If we place this same worship leader into the exilic period and give him a psalter, all those words could be shortened to one word: “hallelujah”

The word hallelujah is a transliteration into Greek of two Hebrew words: halal and YHWH. Halal means to “extol the greatness or excellence of a person, object, or event.” It is often translated to “praise.” But who are you to praise? YHWH is the covenant name of God. So, to say “hallelujah” is saying “extol greatness to our covenant-keeping God.” “Alleluia,” which is found in the KJV, is synonymous with hallelujah.

Where did the word hallelujah come from? It’s interesting that the word does not appear until the exilic period of the Israelites. Does this mean that it was picked up from another culture? The safest bet is to go with Eedrmans: “a Jewish tradition, perhaps seeking to disavow any such use of the sacred name, contends that it was a very ancient cultic acclamation of unknown etymology.”

There is a bit more interesting etymology to the word hll. It shares a cognate with “new moon” and “appear on the horizon.” As explained, “from this root derive the hiphil, ‘shine, cause to shine’ and the imperfect ‘make shining.’ It also is connected with ‘rejoice, shout, and jubilation.’” But connecting this word of praise to the name of God only comes after the exile.

What Does Hallelujah Mean?

As noted above, hallelujah means to praise the LORD. But it’s actually more of a liturgical expression of praise than a response to an event. We tend to use it in a more responsive fashion.

There is a man in our church who says “hallelujah” even when he is hit with bad news. Even though the word itself isn’t used, this response has a long history—going back to Job who said “blessed be the name of the Lord” when he received his unwelcome news. Saying (and believing) “praise the LORD” in both good and bad times is a wonderful spiritual discipline.

Yet, in most instances it is a call to worship with a liturgical setting more than a response to an event. 

The best translation might be “you all must praise the LORD.” 

There’s a profound beauty in the usage of "hallelujah" that goes beyond its liturgical roots. It is a word that bridges our earthly experiences with heavenly hope.  Using "hallelujah" in both peaks of joy and valleys of challenge is more than a practice; it is a spiritual discipline. It teaches us resilience, helps us cultivate a constant attitude of worship, and keeps our hearts aligned with divine truth, no matter the external situations.

Therefore, while "hallelujah" may often resonate in the echoes of church halls during worship, its truest impact is felt in the daily lives of believers. It is a declaration that every moment is an opportunity to praise the LORD—a perpetual invitation to elevate our gaze above the temporal and fix our eyes on the eternal. Every "hallelujah" whispered or proclaimed is a step closer to living a life that truly glorifies God.

Why Do We Say Hallelujah in Worship?

Hallelujah has been used by people of Jewish faith as well as Christians for centuries. We say it because we have precedent for this in the Scriptures. The Psalms call us to worship with an “hallelujah.” So it is certainly fitting for us to respond with deep praise to the Lord. Yet the Bible is also concerned that we not use the Lord’s name in vain.

In the examples I gave in the introduction, two of these instances could very well be sacrilegious. The preacher who fills his verbal pauses with “an hallelujah” is in danger of saying the Lord’s name in vain. It is always appropriate for us to call people to extol the greatness of YHWH, but if we are bearing his name upon our lips only as a verbal filler, then we are not meditating upon His character.

There is something about the word “hallelujah” that is fun to sing. I don’t know if it’s the way that it rolls of the tongue, or the way it requires us to dig deep and give an exhale as we sing. But when we are given to a “hallelujah” it feels as if we are made for this. And there is definitely truth to this—we were made to praise the Lord. At the same time something like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” could be rather blasphemous. It’s fun to sing—but are we thinking about what we are singing? Some have said that the song has very little to do with praising the covenant-keeping God of the Bible and more to do with sexual expression. Yet, Cohen himself said the song means this:

“This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can… reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’"

The song explains that many kinds of hallelujahs do exist, and all the perfect and broken hallelujahs have equal value. It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion.”

Perhaps, then, Cohen is appropriately using a “hallelujah.” It is appropriate to sing hallelujah when we are extolling the covenant-keeping God of the Bible.

How Often Does the Word "Hallelujah" Appear in Scripture?

As noted earlier, the word “hallelujah” does not appear until the exilic period. In the Old Testament it only appears in the Psalter. And here it only comes at the end of Book 4 (Psalm 104:35). In total the word appears 24 times in the Old Testament (23 by some counts) and only in Revelation 19 in the New Testament. In almost every instance it is used as a call to worship.

In Psalm 113-118 the word appears at the beginning and these psalms are sung at Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles. So, even though the word itself is relatively infrequent in the Scriptures, it is not surprising that in the actual practice of the church (as well as synagogue) the word has a long history of frequent use. Psalm 113 and 114 are sung before the Passover meal and Psalm 115-118 are sung after it. With “praise to the LORD” as the beginning element of each psalm, this shows how worship of God is central to the faith and encapsulates every liturgical event. Many churches still sing Psalms 113, 144, and 118 on the day of Easter—thus connecting the Resurrection with the Passover.

I find the summary given by the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church interesting:

“It occurs in a number of Psalms, esp. in Pss. 111–17, where its position indicated that it was chanted as a kind of *antiphon by the choir of the *Levites. It is found elsewhere in the Bible only in Tobit (13:18) and the Book of Rev. (19:1, 3, 4, 6), in both places as the chant of the saints in heaven. It was taken over into the liturgy of the Church at an early date.

Again, in the Scriptures hallelujah is what is used to call another to worship. In our culture it seems to be “hey, I’m worshipping.” In the Scripture it is more “God is great, we should worship him.”

Sources

Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains

Allen C. Myers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 456.

Path of Obedience – What Does Hallelujah Mean?

F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford;  New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 43.

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What Exactly is Worship According to the Bible?
7 Beautiful Psalms of Praise in the Bible
Worship God as El Elyon: the Lord Most High

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