Hallelujah is Hebrew for “Praise Be to God!” It is a word which has worked its way from Scripture into Christian music so extensively the real meaning of it has been lost. It has become just another word in a song we sing on Sunday, or in our cars, and we move through it without passion or conviction. Today, let’s recover the depth of meaning in the word and bring it back with the passion it deserves.

Here is the writer of the song “Hallelujah”, Leonard Cohen, performing it for us. I have heard this song on television episodes and in churches. While not explicitly a song of Christian Orthodoxy, it is moving and powerful nonetheless. Now that we have visited the meaning of the Hebrew word hallelujah, see if you hear this song, and all others containing hallelujah, differently now.