The Wild Unstoppable Cry of the Soul

Growing up in a charismatic Pentecostal church and family, I heard the word Hallelujah a lot. Sure, it was shouted during sermons, whispered fervently in prayer, and sung with hands raised high. Usually, it was said as a trivial celebration when my mom found her keys or that thing she’d been looking for for weeks. I often hear it used sarcastically. When I was touring with Settle The Sky, my Christian metal band, Hallelujah was screamed into microphones, echoing through sweaty clubs and church basements, sometimes from the voices of kids who weren’t even sure what they believed—but something about that word felt powerful. And while everyone used this word, I felt like most people didn’t seem to be able to articulate what it really meant.

Hallelujah isn’t just a word. It’s a cry. A defiant, unrelenting, soul-shaking exclamation that transcends language, genre, and even belief systems. It’s one of the few Hebrew words that has made its way, unchanged, into nearly every language on earth. My wife, Ariel, walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of this song whose only lyric was just the word Hallelujah.

But what does Hallelujah actually mean? And why does it hold so much weight—whether whispered in worship, shouted in ecstatic praise, or screamed over a hardcore caveman riff in a Sleeping Giant song?

The Etymology of Hallelujah:

The word Hallelujah (הַלְלוּיָהּ) is made up of two parts:

• Hallelu (הַלְלוּ) – A command meaning “praise” (from halal, meaning to shine, boast, or act wildly celebratory).

• Yah (יָהּ) – A shortened form of YHWH, the divine name of God.

So Hallelujah literally means “Praise God!” But not in a quiet, reserved, or passive way.

The root word halal is wild. It comes from the exclamation of freedom. In Islam, if a food is “halal”, then it is praised by the divine and they are “free” to eat it. It means to boast, to rave, to shine, to act clamorously foolish in celebration. It’s the kind of word that doesn’t fit neatly into the stoic, buttoned-up version of faith so many of us were handed. Halal is loud. It’s undignified. It’s messy.

It’s the kind of word that makes most religious people uncomfortable.

Dance Dance Revolution

One of the most unrestrained biblical pictures of true Hallelujah comes from 2 Samuel. King David, who was a warrior and poet, brings the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. And how does he celebrate?

He dances.

Furiously.

He strips off his royal linen robes and dances before the Lord with all his might, completely unbothered by how ridiculous he looks. His wife, Michal, watches in disgust, embarrassed by his lack of dignity. That’s a striking image for Michal’s attitude toward David. She wasn’t just upset; she was cutting him off in her heart, separating herself from his joy and his deep, intimate worship before Yahweh. But David doesn’t care.

“I will become even more undignified than this!” he tells her. “I will be humiliated in my own eyes!” -2 Samuel 6:22

That is Hallelujah—the kind of unrestrained, all-consuming celebration that doesn’t care about appearances or what kind of societal consequences or judgment it brings up in others. The kind that doesn’t hold back. The kind that shakes the ground.

Hallelujah in Metal, Hardcore, and Charismatic Worship

When I look back, I realize that my time in the charismatic church and my time in metal and hardcore were deeply connected by this same reckless, passionate spirit.

In charismatic churches, worship wasn’t just singing songs… it was warfare. It was an outpouring of emotion. People danced, shouted, wept, fell to their knees. Some spoke in tongues. Some shook under the weight of something they couldn’t explain. The band played loud, but not for performance or recognition, but because the Spirit was moving, and nothing about that moment should be tame.

Then I stepped into the world of metal and alternative music, and I felt something eerily familiar. The intensity. The passion. The catharsis of screaming from the depths of your soul, of pushing your body to the limit, of letting go of self-consciousness and giving everything you have to something bigger than yourself. To the energy that was stirring up between everyone in the room.

In the pit at a hardcore show, I saw people swinging fists, jumping off stages, pile-driving toward a moment that felt transcendent. When we played, I saw kids who wouldn’t set foot in a church scream their lungs out to lyrics about redemption, about sacrifice, about love, about hope. The church might not have understood our art form, but it was never really about playing music or getting fame or being a rock star. It was about uniting the broken in a moment of raw transcendence.

To me, that is Hallelujah.

Hallelujah and the Illusion of Separation

There’s something about raw, undignified presence and unity that breaks through the illusion that we are separate from something greater. Not the polished, performance-driven kind that is trying to impress to satisfy an egoic need—but the kind that throws off every weight, every inhibition, and lets the soul truly cry out.

Hallelujah is not about conformity. It’s about connection. It’s about that deep, undeniable pull that every mystic, every artist, every seeker has felt—the pull toward something vast, luminous, and overwhelmingly real. Whether you call it God, the Tao, the Divine, the Source, the Universe, or simply Love, there is something in all of us that knows:

There is more.

And we are all a part of it. We are all invited to leave our egos at the door so our truest self can be free.

Hallelujah is the moment the wave crashes and you feel one with the ocean.

It’s the lump in your throat when a song wrecks you in the best way.

It’s the dancer lost in flow state movement, the poet captivated in words, the mother holding her child, the breath that catches in awe.

It’s in the scream of a metalhead in the pit, in the whispered prayer of the doubter, in the sigh of the atheist staring up at the stars, feeling something too beautiful for words.

Hallelujah isn’t just for “believers”. It isn’t just for “church”. It isn’t just for those who understand. It’s for whoever breathes.

Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise Yah.

And Yah means YHWH

The Invitation to Live Hallelujah

Maybe you’ve been taught that spiritual connection had to look a certain way—had to fit into a religious mold that never quite felt right. Maybe, like me, you felt more of something divine in the roar of a crowd than in a pew. Maybe you were outcast by a church more focused on everyone believing and behaving the same way than having a real encounter with an untamed spirit. Maybe you’ve been waiting for permission to show up fully as you are, to throw off self-consciousness, to stop filtering your presence and just be—raw, honest, unrestrained.

Here it is.

Let your Hallelujah be loud. Let it be messy. Let it be real.

Not because you have to worship a deity, or a god out there somewhere else, not because you need to fit into any system of belief, or any organized religion.

But simply because you are alive.

Because you are part of something bigger than yourself. Because your voice, your body, your breath, your existence—it all matters.

Because to be fully alive, fully present, fully surrendered to this eternal moment—that is the cry of Hallelujah.