Hallelujah

The Hebrew concept of hallĕlū yăh came to Latin as halleluia, which led to Spanish Hallelujah. The term has several uses, although the most frequent refers to the interjection used in Christianity and Judaism to express joy by praise to God.

The Hebrew word hallĕlū can be translated as "Praise" or "Praise". Hallelujah, however, usually implicitly includes the recipient of the praise, it would God. This means that when someone expresses "Hallelujah", it can be understood that it is indicating "Hallelujah to the Lord" or similar.

In the liturgy, is known as hallelujah to a ritual chant. When the faithful sing the hallelujah, they praise the divinity. Many musical compositions, by extension, bear the name hallelujah.

One of the best known songs of the famous American singer-songwriter, novelist and poet Leonard Cohen (1934 - 2016) is called that. He composed "Hallelujah" in 1984 and decided to include it in his album entitled "Various Positions". It is one of the singles that gave him the most popularity and the most successes he managed to reap. Hence, it was later covered by numerous artists such as John Cale, Jeff Buckley, Alexandra Burke or even Pentatonix.

It is a song that deals with topics included in "The Bible." Specifically, in it they appear from King David to friendship, pain, happiness or love. Hence, it includes verses as significant as these: "love is not a victory march, it is a cold and broken hallelujah."

In the same way, we cannot ignore that other different cultural works are also using the word that we are dealing with in their titles. This would be the case, for example, of "The alleluia and other texts." It is a book by Georges Bataille, published in 1981 and which is framed within the genre of philosophy.

Beyond the religion, the interjection hallelujah can be used to express happiness or something positive: "Hallelujah! The Italian team won again after eight games and came out of the bottom of the standings ", "Yesterday we were without electricity for four hours until, hallelujah, the company reestablished the service", “Have you really passed the exam? Hallelujah! I'm proud of you".

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), in his dictionary, lists other meanings of hallelujah: it may be a perennial plant that can be eaten as food; of old prints that make up a series; of a very skinny individual; or a type of paint.

Specifically, we can underline that alleluia is a set of prints with images that became the first antecedents of children's literature and press that existed in Spain. They date back to the 18th and 19th centuries and their objective was to introduce children to legends, stories and fables through drawings.