Laudation ; specifically (concretely) a hymn
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תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is the Hebrew word for praise — the noun form of the verb halal (to praise, to shine brightly). The Hebrew title of the Book of Psalms is תְּהִלִּים (tehillim — 'praises'), making tehillah the defining word of the entire Psalter.
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Full entry for תְּהִלָּה (H8416) · Open the biblical lexicon
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is the Hebrew word for praise — the noun form of the verb halal (to praise, to shine brightly). The Hebrew title of the Book of Psalms is תְּהִלִּים (tehillim — 'praises'), making tehillah the defining word of the entire Psalter.
The BSB source-word alignment has 57 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include His praise (8), Praise (6), and praise (4), the praise (4), My praise (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 15:11. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (30), Isaiah (11), Jeremiah (6), Deuteronomy (2).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is the Hebrew word for praise — the noun form of the verb halal (to praise, to shine brightly). The Hebrew title of the Book of Psalms is תְּהִלִּים (tehillim — 'praises'), making tehillah the defining word of the entire Psalter. In its most concentrated theological form, tehillah is not merely a human activity directed at YHWH but the very medium in which YHWH himself dwells: 'you are holy, enthroned on the praises (tehillot) of Israel' (Ps 22:3).
Psalm 22:3 is the theological center: 'But you are holy, enthroned (yoshev) on the tehillot (praises) of Israel.' The image is of YHWH's throne located in the praises of his people. This is not merely metaphor — it is an identity claim: the holy God who resides (yoshev) in Israel's tehillah is available and present precisely in the act of praise. Psalm 22's immediate context makes this claim more striking: the verse occurs in the midst of Psalm 22:1's cry of dereliction ('My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'). YHWH is enthroned in tehillah even when the psalmist feels forsaken.
Isaiah 43:21 gives tehillah its creation-purpose form: 'the people whom I formed (yatsarti, from H3335 yatsar) for myself, that they might declare my tehillah.' The goal of YHWH's forming-work (yatsar) is tehillah: the people exist to be the medium of YHWH's praise. Isaiah 60:18 gives tehillah its eschatological-city form: 'you shall call your walls Salvation (Yeshuah, H3444) and your gates Tehillah.' The new Jerusalem's gates are named tehillah: entry into the city is through praise.
Deuteronomy 10:21 gives tehillah its most intimate identity-form: 'hu tehillatekha ve-hu Elohekha (he is your tehillah and he is your God).' YHWH himself is Israel's tehillah — the content of all their praise and the object of all their glory. This formula appears again in Jeremiah 17:14 ('you are my tehillah') — the individual believer's declaration that YHWH himself is the content of their praises, not merely their audience.
Exodus 15:11 gives tehillah its cosmic-doxological form: 'nora tehillot (awesome in praises)' — YHWH is terrible and wonderful in his tehillot, the praises that surround and describe him. The plural tehillot is used for the sum total of YHWH's praiseworthiness — the catalog of all his great and saving acts.
For the preacher, תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is the word that answers חָמָס (chamas): where chamas fills the earth with violence (Gen 6:11, Hab 1:2), tehillah fills the earth with YHWH's glory (Ps 48:10 — 'your tehillah reaches to the ends of the earth'). Habakkuk 3 is the most striking example: after two chapters of complaint about chamas, the prophet ends in tehillah — 'even though the fig tree does not blossom... yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my yeshuah.' Tehillah before deliverance is the highest form of faith.
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is currently indexed about 58 times in the local Hebrew index. Its theological center is YHWH enthroned on Israel's tehillot (Ps 22:3), Isaiah's creation-purpose formula ('formed for myself that they might declare my tehillah,' Isa 43:21), and Deuteronomy's identity-claim ('he is your tehillah,' Deut 10:21). The title of the Psalter (tehillim — praises) makes tehillah the defining word of the canon's praise-collection.
Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
YHWH enthroned on tehillot: 've-atah qadosh yoshev tehillot Yisrael (but you are holy, sitting/enthroned on the praises of Israel).' The word yoshev (sitting, enthroned, from yashav) is used for a king on his throne. YHWH is enthroned in the collective tehillot of his people: their praise is the medium of his royal presence. The context is Psalm 22:1-2's cry of dereliction ('my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I cry by day, but you do not answer'). The tehillah-enthronement claim holds even while the sense of divine absence is acute — the objective reality of YHWH's praise-throne does not dissolve in the subjective experience of forsakenness. Psalm 22 is the Psalm Jesus quotes from the cross (Matt 27:46), and its culminating praise (v. 22-31) is the tehillah that comes after the cry.
The people I formed for Myself will declare My praise.
Tehillah as the telos of Israel's formation: 'am-zu yatsarti li tehillati yesaperu (this people I formed for myself; my tehillah they will declare).' The yatsar (forming, H3335) and the tehillah are end-to-end: YHWH forms Israel for the purpose of tehillah. The people are not self-made for their own purposes but formed by YHWH for his praise. The context is the new-exodus oracle (Isa 43:16-21): YHWH will do a new thing (v.
19 — 'Behold, I am doing a new thing'), and the redeemed people's response is tehillah. Inverse to chamas (which fills the earth with moral corruption), tehillah fills the earth with the declaration of YHWH's saving acts.
He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen.
YHWH as Israel's tehillah: 'hu tehillatekha ve-hu Elohekha (he is your tehillah and he is your God).' This is the most compressed tehillah-theology in the OT: YHWH is not merely the recipient of tehillah but its content — he is the tehillah itself. The basis is the concrete acts: 'these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.' Tehillah is grounded in witnessed, remembered saving acts — the exodus history is the content of the tehillah.
Jeremiah 17:14 personalizes this: 'save me... for you are my tehillah (tehillati atah)' — YHWH is the individual believer's own tehillah, not just the corporate confession.
Who among the gods is like You, O Lord? Who is like You—majestic in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders?
YHWH as nora tehillot (awesome in praises): 'mi khamokha ba-elim YHWH, mi khamokha ne'dar ba-qodesh, nora tehillot, oseh fele (who is like you among the gods, O Lord; who is like you, magnificent in holiness, nora tehillot, doing wonders?) ' The phrase nora tehillot is unique: YHWH is not just worthy of praise but awesome/terrible in his praises — the sum total of his praiseworthy acts is itself an object of awe.
The Song of the Sea (Exod 15) is the founding tehillah of Israel: the corporate praise-response to the defining yeshuah of the exodus. The mi kamokha (who is like you?) formula frames tehillah as incomparability-praise: YHWH's praiseworthiness is unique and unrivaled.
Your name, O God, like Your praise, reaches to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness.
The universal reach of tehillah: 'ke-shimkha Elohim ken tehillatekha al-qetsve aretz (as your name, O God, so your tehillah reaches to the ends of the earth).' YHWH's shem (name) and his tehillah have the same geographic scope: where his name is known, his praise reaches. The context (Ps 48:1-8: 'great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain') grounds the universal tehillah in the specific testimony of Zion: the city of God is the source from which tehillah radiates to the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 43:21 gives the agent of this radiation: the people formed for tehillah are the means by which it reaches to all nations.
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Hebrew word. Praise as a concrete act of spoken or sung worship, not abstract sentiment; foundational to Hebrew liturgical practice
Praise as a concrete act of spoken or sung worship, not abstract sentiment; foundational to Hebrew liturgical practice
laudation; specifically (concretely) a hymn BDB: praise Usage: praise.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 58 lexical occurrence verses.
Defines the purpose of redemption in worship. Isaiah 43:14-21
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah) is the word that gives the congregation the theology of praise — not as a warm-up exercise before the sermon but as the defining activity of the people formed by YHWH (Isa 43:21: 'formed for myself that they might declare my tehillah'). The three most important theological claims of tehillah for the preacher are: (1) YHWH inhabits tehillah (Ps 22:3 — 'enthroned on the praises of Israel') — the congregation's praise is the dwelling-place of YHWH's royal presence; (2) YHWH is the tehillah (Deut 10:21 — 'he is your tehillah') — the content of all praise is not a feeling but a person; (3) tehillah reaches to the ends of the earth (Ps 48:10) — the congregation's tehillah is the means by which YHWH's incomparability becomes known to all nations.
Paired with chamas (violence, H2555), tehillah is the counter-reality: where chamas fills the earth with moral destruction (Gen 6:11), tehillah fills the earth with YHWH's glory. Habakkuk 3 is the model: after two chapters of prophetic complaint about unanswered chamas (Hab 1:2-3), the prophet closes in a tehillah of defiant faith before the deliverance comes (Hab 3:17-18: 'even though the fig tree does not blossom...
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my yeshuah'). Tehillah before the deliverance, in the middle of the chamas-filled world, is the highest form of faith.
Ps.22.3
תְּהִלָּה (tehillah, H8416) is from the root הָלַל (halal, H1984 — to praise, to shine, to boast; also Piel — to praise intensively: hallel). Halal produces: תְּהִלָּה (tehillah — praise, the noun); הַלְלוּ-יָהּ (hallelujah — 'praise YAH,' occurring repeatedly in the Psalter); מַהֲלָל (mahalal — praise, fame); הֵילֵל (helel — shining one/morning star, Isa 14:12, from the shining/boasting sense of halal).
The verb halal in the Piel is the most common form of the praise-command in the Psalms ('hallelu YHWH'). The book of Psalms is called סֵפֶר תְּהִלִּים (Sefer Tehillim — Book of Praises) in the Hebrew canon — the plural of tehillah is the title of the whole collection. In NT Greek, the primary heir of tehillah is ainesis (G133 — praise: Heb 13:15 — 'a sacrifice of praise [ainesin], that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name') and doxazo (G1392 — to glorify, praise: John 17:4, Rom 15:6, 1 Pet 4:16).
Hallelujah (G239 — a transliteration of the Hebrew) appears four times in Revelation (19:1, 3, 4, 6) as the heavenly praise-shout at the fall of Babylon.
Hebrews 13:15 gives tehillah its NT sacrificial form: 'Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise (thysia aineseos) to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.' The tehillah of the NT community is offered 'through him' (dia autou — through Christ as the high priest who opens the way of praise): it is explicitly connected to the sacrificial system's whole-burnt-offering vocabulary but offered now as speech, not slaughter.
Revelation 19:1-6 is the eschatological tehillah — the great multitude's fourfold hallelujah at the fall of Babylon and the coming of the Lamb's wedding: 'Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God' (v. 1). The tehillah that began at the exodus (Exod 15:1-21) reaches its consummation in the eschatological hallelujah-chorus of Revelation 19. Philippians 4:8 ('whatever is true, whatever is honorable...
Whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise [epainetos] — think about these things') is the NT's internalized tehillah: the moral formation of the mind toward praiseworthy realities is itself a form of tehillah-discipline. Colossians 3:16's 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God' is the community-form of tehillah: the living of tehillah together as the counter-reality to the world's chamas.
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