Many Verses of 'Praise ye the Lord'

Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah

A meditation on the collision of the sacred and the broken, weaving biblical imagery with human longing, love, and loss. Across its many verses—some sung, some rarely performed—the word hallelujah is not a shout of easy praise, but a complex confession shaped by faith tested through experience.

Cohen draws heavily on Scripture, invoking King David, whose harp-playing pleased God yet whose desire led to moral failure. This tension frames the song’s central paradox: divine beauty revealed through flawed humanity. Love appears not as triumphal romance, but as vulnerability—intimate, sexual, fragile, and often doomed. Relationships fracture; trust falters; desire fades. Yet the longing for meaning persists.

Throughout the lyrics, hallelujah shifts in tone. Sometimes it sounds reverent, sometimes weary, sometimes defiant. Cohen’s genius lies in allowing praise to coexist with doubt. The singer does not deny pain or pretend certainty; instead, he offers a praise that survives despite confusion and disappointment. This is not the “cold and broken” hallelujah of despair alone, but a testimony that even fractured faith still speaks God’s name.

In later verses, Cohen strips away sentimentality altogether. There is no promise of reward, no comforting resolution—only the insistence on honesty. To stand before God, stripped of illusion, and still say hallelujah becomes an act of spiritual courage.

Ultimately, Hallelujah endures because it tells the truth: faith is not the absence of suffering, but the willingness to name God in the midst of it. Cohen’s song becomes a prayer for those who believe, doubt, fall, rise, and keep singing anyway.