Hallelujah in the context of Hallel

The Bible usually uses the name of God in the singular (e.g. Ex. 20:7 or Ps. 8:1), generally using the terms in a very general sense rather than referring to any special designation of God. However, general references to the name of God may branch to other special forms which express His multifaceted attributes. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible reveals YHWH (often vocalized with vowels as "Yahweh" or "Adonai") as the personal name of God, along with certain titles including El Elyon and El Shaddai. Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh, and often sees usage by Christians in the interjection "Hallelujah", meaning "Praise Yah", which is used to give God glory. In the New Testament the terms Theos, Kyrios and Patēr (πατήρ i.e. Father in Greek) are additionally used to reference God.

Respect for the name of God is one of the Ten Commandments, which some Christian teachings interpret to be not only a command to avoid the improper use of God's name, but a directive to exalt it through both pious deeds and praise. This is reflected in the first petition in the Lord's Prayer addressed to God the Father: "Hallowed be Thy Name".

The gradual (Latin: graduale or responsorium graduale) is a certain chant or hymn in liturgical Christian worship. It is practiced in the Catholic Mass, Lutheran Divine Service, Anglican service and other traditions. It gets its name from the Latin gradus (meaning "step") because it was once chanted on the step of the ambo or altar. It is customarily placed after a reading of scripture.

In the Tridentine Mass, it is sung after the reading or chanting of the epistle and before the Alleluia, or, during penitential seasons, before the tract. In the Mass of Paul VI, the gradual is usually replaced with the responsorial psalm. Although the Gradual remains an option in the Mass of Paul VI, its use is extremely rare outside monasteries. The gradual is part of the proper of the Mass.

Jah or Yah (Hebrew: יָהּ‎, Yāh) is a short form of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH), the personal name of God: Yahweh, which the ancient Israelites used. The conventional Christian English pronunciation of Jah is /ˈdʒɑː/, even though the letter J here transliterates the palatal approximant (Hebrew י yodh). The spelling Yah is designed to make the pronunciation /ˈjɑː/ explicit in an English-language context (see also romanization of Hebrew), especially for Christians who may not use Hebrew regularly during prayer and study.

This short form of the name occurs 50 times in the text of the Hebrew Bible, of which 24 form part of the phrase "Hallelujah", a phrase that continues to be employed by Jews and Christians to give praise to Yahweh. In the 1611 King James Version of the Christian Bible there is a single instance of JAH (capitalized), in Psalm 68:4. An American Translation (1939) and the New King James Version (NKJV), published in 1982, follow the KJV in using Yah in this verse.