Hallelujah — the biblical sources behind Leonard Cohen's song

What the song does

Leonard Cohen recorded “Hallelujah” for Various Positions in 1984. The album was famously rejected by Columbia Records in the United States; the song reached wide audience first through John Cale’s 1991 cover and then through Jeff Buckley’s 1994 recording. Cohen continued writing and performing alternative verses throughout his career — by his own account he had written some eighty draft verses before settling on the original studio version.

The song is built around a chorus that uses the Hebrew exclamation hallelujah. Its verses reference three identifiable biblical episodes. Lyrics are under copyright; this entry describes the references rather than quoting them.

The biblical references

David’s harp before Saul — 1 Samuel 16:14-23. Saul, distressed by what the text describes as an “evil spirit from the LORD,” is calmed by the young David’s lyre-playing. Saul does not yet know that David will succeed him. The narrative establishes David as the musician before it establishes him as the warrior or king. The chord-structure described in some of the song’s verses gestures toward this episode.

“And whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David would take the lyre and play it. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him.” (1 Samuel 16:23, BSB)

David seeing Bathsheba — 2 Samuel 11. The episode opens with David remaining in Jerusalem while his army is at war. Walking on the palace roof, he sees a woman bathing. The narrative records his seeing, his enquiry, his summoning of her, and the death of her husband Uriah which David arranges to cover the consequence. The Bathsheba episode is one of the most morally complex narratives in the Davidic cycle.

“One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing — a very beautiful woman.” (2 Samuel 11:2, BSB)

Samson and Delilah — Judges 16. Delilah, having extracted from Samson the secret of his strength (his unshaven hair as part of his Nazirite vow), lets him sleep on her lap and calls for the cutting. The cutting of the hair issues in his capture by the Philistines, the blinding, and the eventual collapse of the temple.

“Having put Samson to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his hair. In this way she began to subdue him, and his strength left him.” (Judges 16:19, BSB)

The word hallelujah itself

The exclamation halĕlû-yāh (הַלְלוּ־יָהּ) is two Hebrew words:

• halĕlû (הַלְלוּ) — masculine plural imperative of halal (הָלַל), “to praise.” HALOT s.v. halal: “to praise, to acclaim, to boast.”
• yāh (יָהּ) — the shortened form of the divine name YHWH, used liturgically.

The combination is therefore literally “praise Yah” — addressed as a command to a congregation.

The exclamation closes and opens specific psalms in the Hebrew Psalter:

• The Hallel psalms (Psalms 113-118) — sung at major Jewish festivals, especially Passover. Their corporate use is ancient: these are the hymns Jesus and the disciples sing at the close of the Last Supper (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26).
• The “final Hallel” (Psalms 146-150) — the closing five psalms of the Psalter, each of which opens and closes with hallelujah.

The Greek New Testament preserves the Hebrew exclamation in transliteration as allēlouia (ἀλληλουϊά) — used four times in Revelation 19, the only NT occurrences. From there it passed into Latin (alleluia) and into Christian liturgy globally, where it has been used in worship continuously for two millennia.

The cultural arc is striking: a Hebrew worship exclamation, sung by Jews for at least two and a half thousand years, used in the closing of the Last Supper, transmitted into Christian Latin liturgy, then carried into a 1984 popular song by a writer of Jewish background that has become one of the most-covered popular songs of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

What the song is and is not

Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is not a religious song in the conventional devotional sense. It uses biblical material to address love, loss, doubt, and the ambiguity of praise offered from inside a difficult life. Cohen reworked the verses across decades; different recorded performances of the song foreground different elements (more religious in some, more romantic in others).

The biblical references the song invokes are accurate. The chord-structure verse, the Bathsheba verse, and the Samson verse all draw on identifiable episodes in 1-2 Samuel and Judges. The word the song uses as its chorus is the Hebrew liturgical exclamation as it has been used in synagogue and church.

For other entries on songs that use biblical material, see Amazing Grace — Newton’s 1772 hymn.

To read the underlying biblical episodes in other translations:

• 1 Samuel 16 — NIV →
• 2 Samuel 11 — NIV →
• Judges 16 — NIV →
• Psalms 146-150 — NIV →