First of all, Protestants don’t reinstate the initial h to “snub” the swallowing of the aspiration in Latin; …
In the Psalms, the word “hallel-u-jah” was a second-person plural imperative, … the “-u-” is the 2nd person plural suffix, ,
Ok, This is where you actually convinced me you have all the pieces – and confused me as to how the usage came in to being Christian-wise – for I heard the “hallal” and great “hallal” explanation from Scott Hahn ( but without liturgical analysis) over the radio some years back and came to a partially wrong conclusion (obviously).
The one part that never made sense to me was the extra “u” sound in the middle – and in trying to trace out other biblical words by sounding out eg: Bersebee beyond the Jordan (if I remember right) I found that there were MANY explanations of what a single word could mean – eg: as in conflicting and unrelated definitions. So, I feared the cause was somewhat hopeless – but you’ve actually encouraged me by solving a problem that has bothered me for a few years – perhaps I was hasty.
I downloaded a transliteration of the BHS text (no pointing) and looked up psalm 100. When you speak of the ‘alleluia in the psalms, I thought you might have been referring to the
Hebrew Masoretic text, but now I see that isn’t the case. Neither the BHS or the deposit in Jerusalem (Mechon Mamre site) (a real crash course in Hebrew!! even the search engilne!) has – hallel YH – or any such notation.
eg: The chapter in revelation being the only place where all bibles will agree to its’ existence.
Whether it was edited out or not, is perhaps a good question to ask the Dead Sea Scrolls…
So, what I am gathering, is that the versions I would
want to say, in private devotion, would be starting with an A just like Latin/Greek Alleluia, right?
(as if the H / aspiration were never there.)
You state that in your private devotions, you say “hallel JHWH.” I would have to look this up in my grammar refs to be sure, but I believe that what you are saying is a 2nd person singular imperative, telling some one person who is with you to praise JHWH.
The only one person there was Jesus.

I am sure he praises his father, too, anyway (at least in his human capacity).
The bottom line here is that if you’re not familiar with foreign language, you’re better off sticking with your native language; otherwise, you wind up saying things that either are meaningless or have a meaning that’s completely different from what you intended.
That’s where things still puzzle me.
Singing Alleluia in mass has exactly the same problem. No one taught me this in CCD years ago what this word meant – it was meaningless. A beautiful sound, joyous, but meaningless.
And now that I know what it
probably means, I still find it disturbing that I would be commanding those around me to praise God without understanding what action we are doing to praise him.
Why do you think this form of the word was preserved in Greek usage in a Christian liturgical setting.
The use of it in Revelation, which is also a liturgical setting would seem to have a meaning associated with it that perhaps relates to the unbelievers who receive God’s wrath if it is taken in the sense of “you-all” praise God. It also follows the final Gospel preached in chapter 14 – as the Alleluias are relegated to chaper 19 with the suggested fall of “Babylon” eg: Rome proper on the other side of the river from where St. Peter and Paul were slain. (Vatican).
So, the liturgical sequence of Revelation is different than the English masses. I’ll have to check the Latin rites as well, but I don’t think its liturgical position is any different.
I don’t understand our liturgy having the congregation saying it – rather than the cantor saying Alleluia and having the congregation respond. It really makes me feel like a mistake has been made somewhere, or something important has been forgotten.
The psalm,(110/11) typically translated “The LORD said to my lord…”
follows the pattern YHWH for the first LORD, and a different word for the second (the Christ). This again reinforces the notion I have that YHWH refers to the father; as I expect the Father is the one who would have the son sit at his right hand. That the Jews of Jesus’ day understood the second title Lord to refer to Christ, is shown clearly in Matthew 22:41 - 45.
This all leads up to an interesting point – the Hebrew has no recollection of Alleluia in the Masoretic scripts of the OT (But I haven’t exhastively checked). We, then, have only the Greek transliteration to work from (period).
If later Christian scribes ASSUMED it was Hallel u Yah, even though it wasn’t – I can imagine a breathing mark added to the start of the Greek on that basis.
But, I am more interested in the fact that “Judah” also has the U sound; eg: what is the word if one drops the added “D”.
In Greek, Judah’s name is also transliterated, and the vowels would be obvious. Do you know what function the extra D adds to the name Judah in Hebrew?
I have more thoughts, but not enough information to pose my questions yet, and in this weather getting to the dead sea scrolls in the Library will be a few days. Your article also had a few other points of interest that I forget, so perhaps tomorrow…
Thanks for your patience; I appreciate any thoughts you (all) have.
God bless. Prepare ye for the Christ child at Christmas. Peace to His people on Earth.
–Andrew.