“And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Mark 14:26).

That sentence used to feel a little inconsequential to me. The hymn almost sounds like an afterthought—a hurried punctuation mark on the end of dinner; a quick pause between the weighty Passover symbols illuminated by Christ and the earthshaking events that were about to unfold in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I don’t think that anymore.

* * *

The literal translation from the Greek is less “when they had sung a hymn” and more “when they had hymned.” That’s not incredibly significant, except in that it’s easy to read “when they had sung a hymn” to mean “when they had picked a hymn at random and finished singing it.” What that overlooks is the fact that hymning was, in all likelihood, already an established part of the Passover meal—not a spur-of-the-moment decision.

We don’t know this for sure. I want to clarify that before we put too much weight on it. But it’s not exactly a flimsy theory, either.

Toward the end of the second century, a Jewish rabbi named Judah ha-Nassi began compiling and editing what would become the Mishnah—a written collection of Jewish oral traditions, some of which stretched back some 700 years to the Second Temple period. In many ways, the Mishnah offers some insight into what Jesus meant when He told the Pharisees, “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8). It’s full of convoluted instructions and extraneous traditions that often result in making God’s instructions feel more complicated than they really are—the kind of regulations Jesus called “heavy burdens, hard to bear” (Matthew 23:4).

(Tractate Shabbat, for example, begins with a lengthy analysis of how to determine exactly who is at fault for breaking the Sabbath if a homeowner provides alms to a beggar standing at the threshold of his house—and by the second chapter, the discussion moves onto whether it’s possible to bypass the Sabbath restriction against kindling a fire by filling an eggshell with oil and letting it drip into an already lit lamp.)

So while we wouldn’t necessarily consult the Mishnah as an authority on the right way to do things, it is a helpful insight into the way things were done.

All that to say: In prescribing the correct way to approach the Passover meal (the seder), the Mishnah explains that after reminding those present of the reason for the Passover lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs—and after reflecting on how God delivered His people from slavery into freedom—the leader of seder should begin reciting the Hallel (Tractate Pesachim 10:5-6).

* * *

The Hallel is much older than the Mishnah. In fact, it’s as old as the book of Psalms itself—because it’s part of the Psalms.

The Hallel (the Hebrew word for “praise,” as in hallelujah) is a title given to Psalms 113-118, collectively. Over and over, these psalms instruct those listening to give thanks and to hallelujah—to “praise the LORD” (Psalm 113:1, 9; 115:18; 116:19; 117:2).
For thousands of years, the Jews have recited these psalms during their celebration of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and the new moons.

During the Jewish Passover meal in particular, the Mishnah splits the Hallel into two sections. Halfway through the meal, the leader of the seder recites the first portion of the Hallel (the Mishnah includes conflicting opinions on whether that first portion includes Psalm 114 or only Psalm 113). At the end of the meal, the leader recites the remaining psalms (either 114-118 or 115-118).

(The Gemara, which functions as a commentary on the Mishnah, also adds Psalm 136, “the Great Hallel,” to the end of that sequence in Tractate Pesachim 118a:1. However, that work was produced centuries after the Mishnah, so it’s unclear to me whether Psalm 136 was a later addition to the formula.)

Many commentators believe the second part of the Hallel was what Jesus and His disciples were “hymning” at the conclusion of their own Passover meal in the gospel accounts. Even the most prominent Greek lexicon, in defining the Greek word hymneō (G5214), decisively notes that the hymn was “the second part of the Hallel [Pss 113–118 Mt], sung at the close of the Passover meal” (BDAG, ὑμνέω).

* * *

The million-dollar question here is, of course, “So what?”

In my mind, just that extra glimpse into one of history’s most pivotal moments is reason enough to get excited about potentially knowing what Jesus and His disciples were singing that momentous night.

Knowing that these may have been the words on everyone’s mind as the Son of God was arrested and led away to be condemned and crucified—knowing that this may have been the song they sang before the avalanche began—gives me a feeling of greater connection to the events of that night. It means I can read those songs, too. I can think about what it would have been like to hear those words in that room.

But there’s more to it than that.

* * *

The Hallel tells a story—of the God who “raises the poor out of the dust . . . that He may seat him with princes” (Psalm 113:7-8)—a God so lofty that “He bends down to look at the sky and the earth” (verse 6, NET). That’s the God who called His people out of Egypt, out from among “a people of strange language” (Psalm 114:1)—a God whose presence alone caused seas and rivers to flee and mountains to quake (verses 3-7), and who commanded rocks to pour out water for those who needed to drink (verse 8).

They were called out of a land whose gods were “silver and gold, the work of human hands” (Psalm 115:4)—false deities with mouths that can’t speak, eyes that can’t see, ears that can’t hear, noses that can’t smell, hands that can’t grasp, and feet that can’t walk (verses 5-7).

But not our God. “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases” (verse 3). Like, for instance, raining down judgment on the worthless idols of Egypt and calling His people to journey toward the Promised Land.

The dead can’t sing God’s praises (verse 17), but God is stronger than death. Even when we find ourselves bound by the ropes of death and the pangs of the grave (Psalm 116:3), God has the power to step in and set us free:

For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD
In the land of the living.

(Psalm 116:8-9)

This is the God we offer our praises to, “for his loyal love towers over us, and the LORD’s faithfulness endures” (Psalm 117:2, NET). God’s hesed, or covenantal loyalty and love, extends far beyond the boundaries we can conceive of as human beings. We can count on it—always and forever.

And when “the LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6). He is “my strength and song, and He has become my salvation” (verse 14).

With that salvation, we aren’t going to die—we’re going to live (verse 17). More than that, we’re going to walk through the gates of righteousness and sing praises to the one who made it possible (verses 19-20). We left behind the worthless gods of Egypt, and God has brought us into a place of security and peace, where we can rejoice in His goodness.

* * *

As Christians, it’s so easy to look at the Passover exclusively through a New Testament lens. After all, why wouldn’t we? It’s the memorial of the death of Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice that paid the penalty for our sins so we could live. That’s huge. That’s everything. It’s the reason any of us get to be here in the first place.

But Passover is also a memorial of the Exodus—of the time God broke the power a foreign ruler had over His people, leading them out of bondage and into a covenant relationship with Him. God instituted the service as a yearly reminder of that great deliverance and as a teaching tool for those who would be born long after it had happened:

And it shall be, when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” that you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.”

(Exodus 12:26-27)

The Days of Unleavened Bread were no different:

And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, “This is done because of what the LORD did for me when I came up from Egypt.” It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt.

(Exodus 13:8-9)

The Old Testament groundwork wasn’t laid so that it could be overshadowed by New Testament fulfillments and forgotten, but as a means of infusing those fulfillments with potency and power. Israel’s exodus from Egypt and our exodus from sin share the same spiritual DNA: a loving and almighty God who shattered the power of a ruthless captor, bringing former slaves into a privileged relationship with Him.

You can’t read through the Hallel and not think of Israel’s exodus.

And you can’t think of Israel’s exodus without thinking about our exodus. Our deliverance. Our journey to the gates of righteousness, opened for us by the blood of the Lamb that died to give us life.

* * *

Still, there’s more. The Hallel was written long before the Son of God walked this earth as a human being—and yet it was also inspired by Him. If He sang it that Passover evening, He was singing the words He had moved His faithful servants to record long ago—and in those words were reminders of what was coming.

Psalm 115 speaks of the Gentiles mocking God’s people, asking, “So where is their God?” (verse 2). As Jesus was dying on the cross, onlookers mocked, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (Matthew 27:43, ESV, cf. Psalm 22:8).

Psalm 116 speaks of being bound by the ropes of death and the pangs of the grave, but ultimately being delivered by God (verses 3-9). Speaking of Jesus to the assembled crowds on Pentecost, it was Peter who said, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24, ESV).

Psalm 117 calls the Gentiles—foreigners, non-Jews—to join in the hallelujah and praise God. In time, the early Church would marvel when they came to understand that “God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life” (Acts 11:18).

And Psalm 118 . . . well, Psalm 118 brings it home in a powerful way. The nations are surrounding the psalmist with ill intent, but he remains committed to God:

You pushed me violently, that I might fall,
But the LORD helped me.
The LORD is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.

(Psalm 118:13-14)

Despite his circumstances, the psalmist declares, “I shall not die, but live” (verse 17). He will enter the gates of righteousness (verses 19-20). And then:

The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the LORD’s doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.

(Psalm 118:22-23)

That verse should be especially familiar to us—it’s quoted as a Messianic prophecy in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter, and then alluded to in Ephesians. How many hundreds of years had Jewish families faithfully concluded their Passover meals singing about the stone which the builders rejected? And now here He was, concluding His own Passover meal, preparing for that rejection to play out.

Verse 26 cries out, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!” And again, that should sound familiar. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the crowds shouting that phrase as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey—just days before many of them cried out to demand His gruesome execution.

And then the final words of the Hallel:

God is the LORD,
And He has given us light;
Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise You;
You are my God, I will exalt You.
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.

(Psalm 118:27-29)

That’s where it ends.

He has given us light. Bind the sacrifice to the altar. Praise God and give thanks—His loyal love endures forever.

Did the Light of this world sing those words before traveling to the place where He would be bound as a sacrifice—as our sacrifice—proving once and for all the incredible extent of God’s love for us? It seems incredibly likely.

And just plain incredible.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

(John 1:9-13, ESV)

What kind of love is that? How are we supposed to wrap our minds around it? What is the breadth and length and height and depth of that love? Who are we to be on the receiving end of it?

And yet here we are.

The Passover is here to remind us—of the sacrifice and of the Exodus.

An exodus is about leaving one place behind in order to travel to another.

After the end of the Passover meal, after they had sung a hymn, Jesus told His disciples, “Arise, let us go from here” (John 14:31).

And so we must.

Egypt is behind us. The Promised Land is ahead of us. Our exodus is underway.

Let’s make tracks.