{"id":115617,"date":"2026-09-15T19:11:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T23:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=115617"},"modified":"2026-09-15T19:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T23:12:14","slug":"hebrew-word-for-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/hebrew-word-for-praise\/","title":{"rendered":"Hebrew Word for Praise: What Does “Halal” Really Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>10 Minute, 48 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

Hebrew Word for Praise: What Does “Halal” Really Mean?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Quick answer:<\/strong> The Hebrew word behind most of the “praise” in the Old Testament is הָלַל (halal)<\/strong>, pronounced hah-LAHL<\/em> — Strong’s H1984<\/strong>. Its root idea isn’t “say respectful things about God.” It’s to shine<\/em>, and from there to make a show, to boast, to celebrate loudly enough that people turn and look.<\/em> It is also the first half of a word you already say without translating: Hallelujah<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word Study: Where “Halal” Comes From<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most English readers meet “praise” as a church word — something quiet, formal, and slightly stiff. Halal is none of those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The root sense of halal is to shine<\/strong> — brightness, light, something giving off its own glow. From there the word moves outward in the causative direction: to make<\/em> something shine, to hold it up in the light, to show it off. That is the whole distance between “to shine” and “to praise.” Praise, in Hebrew, is making something visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is why the same verb turns up in places your English Bible doesn’t render as “praise” at all. In Psalm 34:2, “My soul shall make her boast<\/strong> in the LORD” — that “boast” is halal. In Jeremiah 9:24, “let him that glorieth glory<\/strong> in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me” — “glorieth” and “glory” are both halal. Praising God and bragging about God are the same word in Hebrew. The only variable is what you are bragging about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The root pushes further still. In its most intensive reflexive forms, halal shades into raving — carrying on like someone who has lost their senses. (Lexicons are genuinely divided on whether that is the same root stretched to its limit or a look-alike homonym.) Either way, the neighborhood this word lives in is not restraint. It is the word for the kind of celebration that can cost you your dignity — the kind David’s wife Michal found embarrassing to watch from the window (2 Samuel 6:16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two words come straight off this root, and you already know both:<\/p>\n\n\n\n