I have lived most of my life believing that Hallelujah is our heavenly language until I decided to look into the meaning of Hallelujah in the Bible. Are you curious?
I went through Pentatonix Hallelujah Lyrics to discover how they turned Hallelujah into a Christmas Carol and got it ranking alongside songs like O Come, Let Us Adore Him in 2016. I did not know that it was a cover of the song by Leonard Cohen, and honestly, it did not help me see how heavenly the word was.
However, two questions came to mind: What does Hallelujah mean? And Is Hallelujah our heavenly language? In this study, our discussion will be mainly around those two, and I hope you are ready for this!
Meanwhile, have you seen our previous publication on Bible Verses About Stress And Hard Times? You should give it a read!
The Meaning Of Hallelujah In The Bible
To arrive at the meaning of Hallelujah in the Bible, we will consider the question: what does Hallelujah mean in Hebrew and Greek?
The word Hallelujah is a transliteration from two Hebrew words: Hallu (הללו) and Yah/Jah (יה), expressed as Hallu Yah (הללו יה). It means Praise God or Praise the Lord. It is relative to Hallel, the Hebrew word used in Jewish liturgies to describe the Psalms Of Praise from Psalms 113–118 in the festival of Tabernacles.
Another rendition of Hallelujah is Alleluia, the Latin word from the Greek Allēlouia, derived from the Hebrew words. They all refer to Praise God or Praise Ye The Lord.
In the Old Testament, the combination appeared in the Psalms, either at the beginning or the ending (24 times between Psalms 104 and Psalms 150). For instance, Psalms 104:35 WEB says, “Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. Let the wicked be no more. Bless Yahweh, my soul. Praise Yah!” While Psalms 113:1 WEB begins with, “Praise Yah! Praise, you servants of Yahweh, praise Yahweh’s name.”
The two last words and the first two words of each of the above verses can be rendered Hallelujah, and note: Yah is a short form of the Hebrew name for God (YHWH).
In the New Testament, Hallelujah appears four times in the book of Revelation 19, between verses 1 to 7. When I looked at it, I discovered the possible origin of the saying, Hallelujah is our heavenly language.
As we see that together, I hope you would not mind checking out our study of the meaning of Hosanna in the Bible as we look into the original language.
Is Hallelujah Our Heavenly Language?
“After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God:
for true and righteous are his judgments. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.’
A second said, ‘Hallelujah! Her smoke goes up forever and ever.’
The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, ‘Amen! Hallelujah!’
A voice came from the throne, saying, ‘Give praise to our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, the small and the great!’
I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!
Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let us give the glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.’” Revelation 19:1 –7 WEB.
From the passage above, the term Hallelujah is used three times at the beginning of the statements in quotes and once at the end. None of those statements suggested a heavenly language, but a songwriter introduced the idea of heavenly language from a narration of the statements coming from heaven.
If that were the case, then every word that followed Hallelujah in each statement should be tagged heavenly languages.
However, from our study so far, we can see that Hallelujah is not a heavenly language per se, but a Hebrew language that was used in the Psalms and the Revelation of John. Praise the Lord!
