Dictionary entry

Hymn

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

A religious canticle, song, or psalm, Eph 5:19Col 3:16. Paul requires Christians to edify one another with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Matthew says that Christ and his disciples, having supped, sung a hymn, and went out. They probably chanted a part of the psalms which the Jews used to sing after the Passover, which they called the Halal; that is, the Hallelujah psalms. These are Ps 113:1-118:29, of which the first two are supposed to have been chanted before the Passover was eaten, and the others afterwards.