I’ve heard a whole lot of people claim the Hebrew word hallelujah means “highest praise.” It doesn’t.
The word
- Hallelu hallelu hallelu hallelujah
- Praise ye the L
ORD - Hallelu hallelu hallelu hallelujah
- Praise ye the L
ORD - Praise ye the L
ORD - Hallelujah
- Praise ye the L
ORD - Hallelujah
- Praise ye the L
ORD - Hallelujah
- Praise ye the L
ORD
The children’s pastor would instruct one half of the room to stand to sing, “Hallelujah,” then sit while the other half stood to sing “Praise ye the L
It’s a very simple song, but it’s meant to teach us precisely what “hallelujah” means. It’s technically not even praise! It’s the command to praise. “Praise ye the L
But of course not every Christian has grown up with this children’s song, and a lot of us have taken our definition from another song—CeCe Winans’ 2003 song “Hallelujah Praise (The Highest Praise).” Which begins like so.
- Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
- Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
- Hallelujah is the highest praise, hallelujah is the highest praise
- Hallelujah is the highest praise, hallelujah is the highest praise
Lately I’ve heard it in Bishop Carlton Pearson’s 2019 song “Hallelujah is the Highest Praise.” Other gospel artists are repeating the idea, ’cause it’s all over the place. But let’s be fair; the teaching didn’t originate with Winans. I’ve heard it long before her song came out.
It’s obviously not based on bible. Not just because of what the word hallelujah literally means, but because God makes it pretty obvious that saying fancy, holy-sounding biblical-language words are way less important to him than
What’s the highest praise we an offer Jesus? Do as he says. Abide in him.
What does the bible call the highest praise?
If you’re dead set on poring through the bible looking for what God considers the most profound spoken-word statement of praise we can give him… well, here are a few nominees.
HOSANNA. On 29 March 33, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and the crowds greeted him with the Hebrew saying
יָשַׁע נָא /yaša na, which in Greek becameὡσαννά /osanná, which in English became hosanna.Hosanna means either “save us!” or “oh, salvation!”, and is a form of praise; and you’ll notice the Judeans exclaimed hosanna instead of hallelujah. But this might very well be because the praise was directed towards Jesus, and if you didn’t know
Jesus is Y you’d understandably think it was wrong to praise a mere human with hallelujah.HWH ,THE LORD’S NAME. On 31 October 445
BC , Nehemiah held a ceremony wherethe Levites readthe Law to the people of Judea, then worshiped him like so:
Nehemiah 9.5 NET - The Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, “Stand up and bless the L
ORD your God!” - “May you be blessed, O L
ORD our God, from age to age. May your glorious name be blessed; may it be lifted up above all blessing and praise.”
To these Levites, the name of the L
ORD himself is “above all blessing and praise.” That’s the highest praise: YHWH .The name he chose for himself; the name above every name. (That, and the other name he chose for himself, “Jesus.”)The L
ORD himself indicates his name is a profound statement in his description of himself to Moses.
Exodus 34.6-7 NET - 6 The L
ORD passed by before him and proclaimed: “The LORD , the LORD , the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, 7 keeping loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”
Not for nothing does God start by declaring his name twice. Not for nothing does he repeatedly state in the Law, “I am the L
ORD .” It means he’s not playing around. This is holy stuff here.
Leviticus 20.7-8 NET - 7 “You must sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am the L
ORD your God. 8 You must be sure to obey my statutes. I am the LORD who sanctifies you.”
And lest you’ve forgotten, we Christians invoke
Jesus’s name an awful lot for the very same reason. It identifies us as his. It requests his approval and power. It invokes him; we call upon him because we want his help, and want him to be with us! Jesus is YHWH , so if the name of the LORD is high praise, so’s the name of Jesus.Identifying our God as the L
ORD —recognizing the LORD is our God, and only the LORD , and not mixing him up with other gods likemoney andprosperity andpatriotism andour own likes and dislikes —is the highest praise, for it leads us to take him seriously and actually follow him. And like I said, following him is definitely a form of high praise.HOLY HOLY HOLY. Lastly, round the year 68, John had a vision of the living creatures round God’s throne. Which don’t praise him day and night with hallelujah. They prefer to go with
Revelation 4.8 NET - “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful,
- Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”
They praise God with his holiness… and likewise invoke his name. Their words
κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ /kýrios o Theós o pantokrátor, “Lord God Almighty,” are most likely a reference to Isaiah 6.3, when the seraphs said something mighty similar.
Isaiah 6.3 NET - They called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the L
ORD of Heaven’s Armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!”
These angelic creatures praise God with three statements of “holy.” Christians have historically presumed this has something to do with
the trinity, but nah; more likely it’s the ancient Hebrew custom of saying a word multiple times so you get the idea they really do mean it. The LORD really is holy. And that’s how these angelic beings offer God their highest verbal praise—by invoking his name, andby calling him holy.
So there ya go: Three nominees for the most praiseworthy words you can say to God. Though I’m still gonna say the highest praise is obedience.
So why do people keep saying this?
Duh; because it sounds good. Because passing along a half-baked saying is way easier than fact-checking it with bible.
Because saying hallelujah, nice ’n loud, is way, way easier than
If hallelujah is our highest praise, our praise comes extremely cheap. All we gotta do is say a word! And
See, the more we look at it, the more ridiculous and shallow it gets to claim hallelujah is the very highest praise we can offer God. We can obviously do better. We can love the L
So hallelu Y
