Psalms 113 to 118 · Prayer and Praise · Featured Study
The Hallel
Dieric Bouts, The Feast of the Passover, about 1465. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
THE ARTWORKBouts painted the central panel of the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament at Leuven. He set the meal in a Flemish room with the table seen almost from above, so every figure at it stays visible. The Hallel belongs to this table. The Mishnah has the first part of it sung before the meal and the rest completed over the fourth cup. That is where the two Gospel writers place the hymn.
Summary
Summary
The page works through the Hallel in six movements. What the word means and which psalms carry the name. The six read in sequence. The Egyptian Hallel told apart from the Great Hallel. The feasts at which it was recited, with the tractate named for each. The hymn at the Last Supper. The cry at the gates of Jerusalem that the church has sung ever since.
- Hallel is the Hebrew root inside hallelujah: praise. Psalms 113 to 118 are recited as one unit, not six separate psalms.
- Jewish usage keeps the name Great Hallel for Psalm 136 alone. Christian writers, Spurgeon among them, often apply it to Psalms 113 to 118. This page calls those six the Egyptian Hallel.
- Six occasions are listed with the tractate by name and number, so every claim about when it was sung can be checked.
- Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26 record a hymn at the end of the meal. Gill, Spurgeon and Edersheim all identify it with the second part of the Hallel.
- The crowd at the entry quotes Psalm 118:25-26 back at Jesus. Hosanna is that verse's own plea, save now we pray.
One Name for Six Psalms
Psalms 113 to 118, recited as a single unit
THE WORD
- Hallel is the piel of the root h-l-l, to praise
- The same root stands inside hallelujah, praise Yah
- The six are recited as one block, never as six occasions
- Psalm 117, in the middle of the set, is the shortest psalm in the Bible
The Hallel is a block of six psalms, 113 through 118, that Israel recited as one unit at the appointed feasts. The Mishnah treats it that way throughout: it is a thing you begin, divide, and complete, not a selection made fresh each year.
The name is the Hebrew word for praise. It is the same root that stands inside hallelujah, which is that root joined to the short form of the divine name, so the word means praise Yah. The six psalms carry the name because praise is what they do from the first line to the last.
Hallelujah! Give praise, O servants of the LORD; praise the name of the LORD.The opening line of the whole set, and the word the set is named after stands in it three times over.
Read straight through, the six move from praise in heaven to a procession at the gates of the Temple. The first psalm looks down from above the nations, the last one arrives at a door and asks to be let in.
The Six in Sequence
what each psalm does, and a door to each one in the reader
PSALM 113 · THE GOD WHO STOOPS
Calls the servants of the LORD to praise His name, and sets Him high above the nations. The first thing it says He does with that height is stoop, to lift the poor from the dust and seat the barren woman as a mother of children.
PSALM 114 · THE EXODUS ITSELF
Narrates the going out from Egypt in four short strokes: Judah became His sanctuary, the sea fled, the Jordan turned back, the mountains skipped like rams.
PSALM 115 · THE IDOLS AND THE LIVING GOD
Sets the idols of silver and gold, with mouths that stay silent, against the God who is in the heavens and does as He pleases. Then it calls Israel, the house of Aaron and all who fear the LORD to trust Him.
PSALM 116 · ONE MAN DELIVERED
The single voice of a man brought back from death, paying his vows before all the people and lifting the cup of salvation. The sequence narrows here from the nation to one throat.
PSALM 117 · THE SHORTEST PSALM
Two verses summoning all nations and peoples to praise the LORD for His steadfast love. Paul quotes it in Romans 15:11 as warrant for the Gentiles worshipping alongside Israel.
PSALM 118 · THE PROCESSIONAL CLOSE
Ends the set as a thanksgiving procession: His mercy endures forever, the stone the builders rejected becomes the cornerstone, save now we pray, blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dump to seat them with nobles, with the princes of His people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother to her children. Hallelujah!The set opens with God above the nations, and the first thing it says He does with that height is stoop.
The sea observed and fled; the Jordan turned back;The exodus told in one line. This psalm is why the set carries the name Egyptian Hallel.
Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;The idols have every organ of a living body and use none of them. The contrast runs the whole psalm.
I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.A cup lifted in the middle of the Hallel, at a meal ordered around four cups.
Praise the LORD, all you nations! Extol Him, all you peoples! For great is His loving devotion toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Hallelujah!The whole psalm, both verses. It stands at the centre of the six and calls the nations in.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.The refrain that opens and closes Psalm 118, and the same line that runs through every verse of Psalm 136.
The Egyptian Hallel and the Great Hallel
two names that get swapped, and which usage this page follows
THE EGYPTIAN HALLEL · PSALMS 113 TO 118
The six take this name from Psalm 114 and the going out from Egypt that the set rehearses. This is the block the Mishnah means when it speaks of reciting, dividing and completing the Hallel at Passover.
→ Read Psalm 114THE GREAT HALLEL · PSALM 136
Hallel ha-Gadol, the Great Hallel, names Psalm 136 in Jewish usage, the psalm whose every verse ends with the same refrain. The Talmud preserves opinions extending it to Psalms 135 and 136, or to 134 through 136, and the accepted opinion holds Psalm 136 alone.
→ Read Psalm 136Christian writers use the two names loosely. Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David on Psalm 118, calls Psalms 113 to 118 the great Hallel. A reader who meets that phrase there and then meets it in a Jewish source is reading about two different things. This page follows the Jewish usage throughout: Egyptian Hallel for the six, Great Hallel for Psalm 136.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His loving devotion endures forever.The refrain of the Great Hallel, which repeats in all twenty-six verses of the psalm.
When Israel Sang It
six occasions, each with the tractate named so the claim can be checked
PASSOVER, IN THE TEMPLE COURT
Those standing in the courtyard recited the Hallel while the Passover lambs were slaughtered, group by group, repeating it a second time and in theory a third.
Mishnah Pesachim 5:7
PASSOVER, AT THE TABLE
The Hallel is split across the meal. The House of Shammai ends the first part at the close of Psalm 113, the House of Hillel at the close of Psalm 114. Over the fourth cup a man completes the Hallel and says the blessing of song.
Mishnah Pesachim 10:6-7
THE SECOND PASSOVER
Among the differences between the first Pesach and the second, the first requires the Hallel while the offering is eaten.
Mishnah Pesachim 9:3
TABERNACLES
The lulav is waved during the Hallel at the opening and closing call to give thanks and at the cry to be saved. Rabbi Akiva watched Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua wave only at Psalm 118:25.
Mishnah Sukkah 3:9
DEDICATION AND THE NEW MOON
The first of Tevet is named as a day falling in Hanukkah, on which the Hallel is recited, and as a New Moon carrying its additional offering.
Mishnah Taanit 4:5
THE COUNT OF THE DAYS
Eighteen days in the Land carry the full Hallel: the eight of Sukkot with the Eighth Day, the eight of Hanukkah, the first day of Passover and Weeks. The Diaspora count is twenty-one.
Babylonian Talmud Arakhin 10a
One correction is worth carrying, because it travels in print. The eighteen-day count belongs to the Gemara at Arakhin 10a. Mishnah Arakhin 2:3 lists the twelve days on which the flute played before the altar, which is a different list, and the two are often merged.
The Hymn They Sang Before Gethsemane
Matthew 26:30 and Mark 14:26, and what the hymn was
WHO IDENTIFIES IT
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, on Matthew 26:30
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 118
- Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, on the Passover
- The Mishnah puts the completion of the Hallel over the fourth cup
Both Matthew and Mark close the meal with a single clause: they sang, and then they went out. Neither names what was sung. The traditional identification is the second part of the Hallel, Psalms 115 to 118, completed over the fourth cup as the Mishnah prescribes. It is held by Gill on Matthew, by Spurgeon on Psalm 118, and by Edersheim in his account of the Passover service.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.One clause for the hymn and one for the walk. The meal is over and Gethsemane is minutes away.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.Mark records the same moment in the same order, which is why the identification rests on two witnesses rather than one.
If the identification holds, the last songs Jesus sang before the garden were the closing psalms of the Hallel. Among the final lines would have been the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone, and the plea to be saved. Peter later quotes the first of those two at the Sanhedrin.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.Sung at the table on the night before the crucifixion, and quoted by Peter in Acts 4:11 after the resurrection.
This Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’Peter reads the psalm's builders as the council standing in front of him.
Hosanna: the Crowd Quotes the Last Psalm Back
Psalm 118:25-26 in Matthew 21:9
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem the crowd did not invent an acclamation. It quoted the closing psalm of the Hallel, the one every pilgrim in the road knew by heart from the feasts. Hosanna is that psalm's own plea. It transliterates the Hebrew hoshi'a na, save now we pray, which stands in this one place in the Hebrew Bible. By the first century it worked as a shout of welcome as well as a request.
O LORD, save us, we pray. We beseech You, O LORD, cause us to prosper! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you.The two verses the crowd is quoting. Verse 25 is the word hosanna itself; verse 26 is the blessing on the one who comes.
The crowds that went ahead of Him and those that followed were shouting: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!”The crowd fits the psalm's blessing over Jesus and adds Son of David to the front of it.
The same psalm is waved through Tabernacles. Mishnah Sukkah 3:9 records the lulav shaken at the call to give thanks and again at the cry to be saved. The gesture and the words in the Jerusalem road had been rehearsed at a festival for generations before that week.
Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.The psalm ends where it began, which is why the Hallel closes on the same line it opened with.
What the Church Did With It
the New Testament writers, Luther, and the Easter lectionary
The New Testament writers quote the Hallel more than they quote most of the Psalter. Peter takes Psalm 118:22 to the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:11 and echoes it again in his first letter. The writer to the Hebrews takes Psalm 118:6 as the ground for fearing no man. Paul takes the whole of Psalm 117 as warrant for the Gentiles praising alongside Israel.
And again: “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and extol Him, all you peoples.”Paul quotes the shortest psalm in the Bible, the one at the centre of the Hallel, to settle the largest question his letter asks.
So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”Psalm 118:6 carried into a letter about endurance, as the answer to what a man can do.
Luther wrote a commentary on Psalm 118 at the Coburg in 1530, while the Diet of Augsburg sat without him, and called the psalm his own. He gave it the title Das schoene Confitemini, the beautiful Confitemini, from the Latin first word of its opening line. In the Western churches Psalm 118 became the paschal psalm. The Revised Common Lectionary appoints verses 1 to 2 and 14 to 24 for Easter Day. The psalm sung at the table on the night of the arrest is the psalm read on the morning of the resurrection.
Read the Great Books
the works that have carried this teaching: go further than this page
The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
Alfred Edersheim · 1874
The fullest public-domain account of how the Hallel was actually performed at the Passover, including the antiphonal response of the people to each line.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
The Treasury of David
Charles Spurgeon · 1869-1885
His exposition of Psalm 118 carries both the Last Supper identification and the looser Christian use of the name great Hallel for all six psalms.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Commentary on the Book of Psalms
John Calvin · 1557
Reads Psalm 118:25 as a prescribed prayer for the kingdom of David, on which the common safety of the people depended.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Das schoene Confitemini: commentary on Psalm 118
Martin Luther · 1530
Written at the Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg, on the psalm he called his own and nearest his heart.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
Save Now, We Pray
Six psalms, sung together at every major feast for centuries, ending with a crowd at a gate asking to be saved and blessing whoever comes in the name of the LORD. When Jesus came up the road that week the crowd had the words ready, because the feast had taught them. When He kept the meal a few days later the same six psalms were on the table, and the hymn at the end of it was almost certainly their close. The psalm that watched Him go out to the garden is the psalm the church now reads on Easter morning.
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