Have you ever said, “Praise the Lord”?
If so, what did you mean?
There is a lot of confusion in Christianity about what the expression means.
Most people think that we praise the Lord when we 1) say the words Praise the Lord, and 2) have happy feelings during worship. But neither of those is praising the Lord. Singing 7–11 songs may produce a sense of euphoria in us. But if we are not actively praising God with our minds as we sing, we are just experiencing a feeling.
The expression praise the Lord occurs 53 times in the Bible, 52 of the uses occurring in the OT. The only NT use is a quote of Psalm 117.
Hallelujah means “Praise Yah.” It is a command to praise Yahweh, the Lord.
Yadah is the more common Hebrew word for praise. It is used forty-nine times to refer to praising God’s name, praising Him, praising You, etc. It is also sometimes translated as give thanks or confess since the root idea is “to know” or “to acknowledge.”
The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology says hallelujah is “The call to praise” (VanGemeren, Vol. 1, p. 1036). Notice that hallelujah is “The call to praise.” In and of itself, it is not praise.
Islam has a practice called the adhan, the call to prayer. Five times a day a muezzin (moo-eh-zin) summons the people of the city to stop and pray. The adhan is not prayer. It is a call to pray that can be heard over a mile away by using loudspeakers. In the same way, Hallelujah is a call to praise. It is not praise itself.
To praise someone is to speak well about him. To praise the Lord, you must acknowledge at least one of two things.
First, you can praise God by extolling His nature and character. This is called descriptive praise. We praise Him when we say that He is good, loving, merciful, gracious, omnipotent, etc.
Second, if you declare God’s mighty deeds in history, you are praising Him. That is called declarative praise. We praise Him when we speak of His parting the Red Sea, parting the Jordan River, creating the world and universe, providing manna in the wilderness, bringing water from a rock, delivering Israel from Egypt, and the Lord Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.
So if, while singing “Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah,” you are acknowledging in your mind specific attributes of God and specific things He has done, then you are praising Him while singing. If you think of no mighty acts and nothing concerning His character, then you might as well be singing, “Like a bridge over troubled waters.”
Here’s an illustration. You attend a seminar for supervisors. The speaker said, “You must regularly praise your employees. Praise them. Praise them often, and you will bring out the best in them.”
One of your employees is named Larry. If you went up to Larry the next day and said, “Praise Larry,” what would he think? He would probably be confused.
You do not praise Larry by saying, “Praise Larry.” You praise Larry by declaring something he did well or by describing one of his good character qualities.
If you said, “Larry, I appreciate that you’re here on time each day and that you work hard the whole day,” you would be praising him.
Or you might say, “You are honest, and I really appreciate that about you.”
Suppose Larry had a big project due, and he got he done three days before the deadline, and the quality of the project was outstanding. Telling him that you appreciate his getting it done early and that you are blown away by the quality of his work would be praising him.
Praise is concrete. It is not abstract.
You can write your praises down.
Take one minute and write down as many descriptive and declarative praises of God that you can think of.
You can do the same thing for your spouse, your children, your students, and your employees. Praising people is a major way in which we encourage them to do more loving and good deeds. The more we praise God, the easier it becomes to praise the people in our lives. Praise is contagious. It makes us thankful people.
Instead of saying, “Praise the Lord,” actually praise Him! If you are thankful for that promotion at work, then praise or thank God for that job and promotion.
Instead of thinking that singing is worship, realize that engaging your mind is worship. Be intentional when you sing, pray, and teach.
Realize that even our requests of God can be a form of praise. If I ask God to give me wisdom in the problem I am facing at work, I am acknowledging that God is all–knowing, wise, loving, and so forth. I know He can give me the wisdom I need.
When I pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I am praising God since I am acknowledging that all I have comes from Him. He is the source of our food and sustenance.
In a sense, we should be praising God all day long. That is what Paul meant when he wrote, “In everything gives thanks.”
