Hallelujah
“Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Your love makes me sing!”
-Your Love Is Amazing
We sing it every Sunday. Hallelujah! There are countless hymns and choruses that contain it in their lyrics. Hallelujah! We shout it in our worship. Hallelujah! It is repeated throughout Scriptures. Hallelujah! However, I believe we have lost sight of the meaning of this word. And if we understand the meaning, then we have lost sight of the power in the words Halal Jehovah.
I was preparing a worship service several months ago. It was a relatively normal Sunday (in that there were no special events, holidays, or the like). As I was pouring over my Bible and my music, I was praying that the Lord would give me a fresh anointing. I was struggling with singing the same old songs week after week. I felt like even though we were adding new music, there was an uncomfortable familiarity with it all.
If I have learned anything as a worship leader it is that true offerings, true worship should never be comfortable. Leviticus 16 gives us a picture of Aaron giving worship and offering to the Lord our God. Some of the phrases include: slaughter the bull, take burning coals, two handfuls of incense, slaughter the goat, take the blood, and sprinkle blood with his finger. I challenge you to read through this chapter and recognize how messy this must have been. Yes, we have been covered with the blood of Christ’s sacrifice, but I think the principle still holds true today.
If we are going through the motions, singing the same songs, leaving our “worship” time unchanged, we are not truly worshipping. If our worship is not costing us something, if it is not messy, we need to reevaluate where we are in relation to Jehovah. The continuation of the same lesson for me is that when your worship gets comfortable, God will make sure you don’t stay there. He will stretch you, shape you, teach you, love you, knock you around, and make you very uncomfortable to remind us who He is and who we are.
This is where I found myself during that week of preparation. It was that week that God revealed even more of Himself to me. He prompted me to study the word, “Hallelujah”. What I found changed how I sing, how I lead, and how I worship Almighty God. “Hallelujah” is made up of two Hebrew words. Halal is often translated “Praise” and Yahh is translated “Jehovah”. Praise Jehovah, Praise God. Again I was finding myself using terminology that was oversung and losing effectiveness in my congregation. Until I found the definition of Halal.
Halal is defined in Strong’s Concordance as making a show or boast, even to rave. Already I started to have a different picture of what my praise should look like. As I sing “Hallelujah”, I should be raving about my God, putting on a show for Him, boasting about Him. But that isn’t even my favorite picture. The definition that brought me to my knees in that moment was “to be clamorously foolish” or “To clamor foolishly”. Wow!
As I look to my God and all He has done, it only makes sense that I should go on and on about Him. I should clamor foolishly. That is what the psalmist was doing in Psalm 113 when he says, “Praise the Lord. Praise O servants of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised, both now and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord!” This psalmist goes on and on, raving about His God, boasting in who God is. We should do the same.
I think the word “foolishly” is what gave me the best picture of Hallelujah. We live in a society where we worry about what everyone around us thinks. As a worship leader, I see this in congregational worship as well. I don’t lead in a charismatic church, so I find the congregation worries about expressing their worship. I have to admit, myself, that I have held back my dancing or shouting as their leader because I didn’t want to look foolish. Hallelujah is clamoring foolishly for our God.
David says it best in 2 Samuel 6:21 after his wife became embarrassed about his expression of worship. “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified in this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” He understood “Hallelujah”. He understood how to rave about His God. He understood how to put on a show and clamor foolishly before the One who is worthy of praise.
However, it is necessary to be reminded that worship and praise is a lifestyle. I have met people who have no problem clamoring on Sunday morning, but don’t live “Hallelujah” after they leave their pew. I have often been challenged by A.W. Tozer who says, “You can’t worship on Sunday morning if you have not worshipped on Saturday night”. I find it easy to boast and rave and put on a show for the Lord on Sunday morning with my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is when I go into the world that I am challenged to continue raving and clamoring foolishly. I believe and pray that the church will be an effective tool in bringing souls to Christ when we consistently live “Hallelujah” in the world.
This is what the Lord says,
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
Or the strong man boast of his strength
Or the rich man boast of his riches,
But let him who boasts boast about this:
That He understands and knows me,
That I am the Lord who exercises kindness,
Justice, righteousness on earth,
For in these I delight,”
Declares the Lord.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have anything else to boast in. I have tried this life on my own, and that didn’t fare too well for me. I boast in a Savior who lifted me from the miry clay. I boast in a God who knows the plans He has for me. I boast in the Spirit who gives me wisdom and revelation that I may know Him better. I boast that I have been adopted into a royal family, a royal preisthood. That is all I can boast about. And I will boast and rave and praise and worship and clamor foolishly until He calls me home.
