Hallelujah literally means "Praise to Yahweh".
An interesting footnote few modern Christians and Jews know about is that over the centuries, even prior to Christ, Jewish rabbis removed the name YHVH/YHWH from every place in Scripture and replaced it with the Hebrew words "Adonai" or "Elohim", which are often translated as "the Lord" and "God" respectively. The removal of the name of God was done by rabbis so that no one would accidentally break the Scriptural law commanding us not to take the name of God in vain (see Deut 5:11). To this day, many Jews and even many Messianic Jews go so far as to remove letters from titles of his name out of this same spirit of respect & carefulness not to break the Law. For instance, many Jews will write "God" as "G-D" or will write "the Lord" as "the L-RD".
Yet there are so many places in Scripture that command us to bless His name, praise His name, call on His name. Additionally, how many of us have sang songs in churches or synagogues about praising & worshipping "the Lord"? How many times have we heard about "the name of the Lord" and how are not supposed to take it in vain, how we are to call on that name, how to praise that name; yet have we ever stopped and thought what, exactly, is the name of God?
Bzzt, sorry Ken, wrong answer. :-) "Lord" is nothing more than a title for a British land owner.
I encourage you to praise and worship the one, true living God using his true name, Yahweh, and the Messiah by his true, Hebrew name, Yeshua, instead of the Greek-to-Latin-to-English translation of "Jesus".
And next time you hear the word Hallelujah, give it some thought -- give praises to Yahweh!
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