How Leonard Cohen made his home in the biblical landscape
Analyzing Leonard Cohen’s lyrics, this essay explores his engagement with the “biblical landscape,” showing how he interpreted personal experience through sacred Scripture.
At the September 2016 launch of his final studio album, Leonard Cohen was asked how important the Bible was to him. He replied, “This is the language I grew up with. This biblical landscape is very familiar to me.”
The phrase “the biblical landscape” was not new to him. Thirty years earlier, he had said in an interview:
“That biblical landscape is our urgent invitation, and we have to be there…. Now what is the biblical landscape? It is the victory of experience. That’s what the Bible celebrates.”
Cohen’s description of the biblical landscape illuminates a defining feature of his lyrics: he was deeply at home with the God of Scripture, and he interpreted his own experience through that biblical lens.
In his songs, God is encountered not apart from life but within it, and the lyrics bear eloquent testimony to that encounter.
Another Moses
In “Born in Chains” (2014), Cohen therefore presents himself not simply as a reader of Exodus but as another Moses—a participant in its drama of bondage and liberation.
“I was born in chains, but I was taken out of Egypt, I was bound to a burden but the burden it was raised. Lord, I can no longer keep this secret, Blessed be the name, the name be praised!”
This is more than respectful religious remembrance; Cohen recognizes the Exodus pattern within his own life.
He too has faced the “mighty sea of sorrow pursued by the riders of a cruel and dark regime.” Yet he also knows that “the waters parted and my soul crossed over.”
The chorus celebrates this movement from bondage to liberation: “Word of words and measure of all measures, blessed is the name, the name be blessed. Written in my heart in burning letters, that’s all I know I cannot read the rest.”
I am who I am
In Exodus 3:14, Moses asks for God’s name and is told simply, “I am who I am.”
For Cohen, this gift of the Name that is no name becomes an invitation to encounter God within the experience of life itself. God writes on the heart, and Cohen knows that landscape well.
Rebel in Babylon
Yet inhabiting the biblical landscape does not mean surrendering to religious conformity. Cohen remains a rebel, willing to recast biblical poetry in the light of his own journey.
In “By the Rivers Dark” (2001), he takes Psalm 137’s lament over exile in Babylon and shows that even in this godless land, he is reached: “Be the truth unsaid and the blessing gone if I forget my Babylon!”
Still singing Hallelujah
While Hallelujah(1984) might be his best-known song and is seen by many as a secular hymn, it is worth noting that 30 years later he returned to this key word from his tradition.
In “You Got Me Singing” (2014), he celebrates the fact that being lost in the biblical landscape may be the very means of being found: “You got me singing even tho’ it all went wrong, you got me singing the Hallelujah song!”
This column first appeared on Flashes of Insight and has been republished with permission by Global Catholic. https://flashesinsight.com/2026/11/10/a-rebel-at-home-in-scripture/
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How Leonard Cohen made his home in the biblical landscape
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At the September 2016 launch of his final studio album, Leonard Cohen was asked how important the Bible was to him. He replied, “This is the language I grew up with. This biblical landscape is very familiar to me.”
The phrase “the biblical landscape” was not new to him. Thirty years earlier, he had said in an interview:
Cohen’s description of the biblical landscape illuminates a defining feature of his lyrics: he was deeply at home with the God of Scripture, and he interpreted his own experience through that biblical lens.
In his songs, God is encountered not apart from life but within it, and the lyrics bear eloquent testimony to that encounter.
Another Moses
In “Born in Chains” (2014), Cohen therefore presents himself not simply as a reader of Exodus but as another Moses—a participant in its drama of bondage and liberation.
“I was born in chains, but I was taken out of Egypt, I was bound to a burden but the burden it was raised. Lord, I can no longer keep this secret, Blessed be the name, the name be praised!”
This is more than respectful religious remembrance; Cohen recognizes the Exodus pattern within his own life.
He too has faced the “mighty sea of sorrow pursued by the riders of a cruel and dark regime.” Yet he also knows that “the waters parted and my soul crossed over.”
The chorus celebrates this movement from bondage to liberation: “Word of words and measure of all measures, blessed is the name, the name be blessed. Written in my heart in burning letters, that’s all I know I cannot read the rest.”
I am who I am
In Exodus 3:14, Moses asks for God’s name and is told simply, “I am who I am.”
For Cohen, this gift of the Name that is no name becomes an invitation to encounter God within the experience of life itself. God writes on the heart, and Cohen knows that landscape well.
Rebel in Babylon
Yet inhabiting the biblical landscape does not mean surrendering to religious conformity. Cohen remains a rebel, willing to recast biblical poetry in the light of his own journey.
In “By the Rivers Dark” (2001), he takes Psalm 137’s lament over exile in Babylon and shows that even in this godless land, he is reached: “Be the truth unsaid and the blessing gone if I forget my Babylon!”
Still singing Hallelujah
While Hallelujah (1984) might be his best-known song and is seen by many as a secular hymn, it is worth noting that 30 years later he returned to this key word from his tradition.
In “You Got Me Singing” (2014), he celebrates the fact that being lost in the biblical landscape may be the very means of being found: “You got me singing even tho’ it all went wrong, you got me singing the Hallelujah song!”
This column first appeared on Flashes of Insight and has been republished with permission by Global Catholic. https://flashesinsight.com/2026/11/10/a-rebel-at-home-in-scripture/
Hope you loved reading this article. Global Catholic is powered by readers like you.
We have no corporate owner or funding agencies. Our in-depth commentaries, features and conversations are not behind the paywall.
We don’t carry advertisements as we want to offer a clutter-free reading experience.
To sustain and grow Global Catholic, we need to raise US$250,000.
Join the remarkable Global Catholic journey
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