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!”

• Sean Goan is a Dublin-based biblical scholar and author. Throughout his career, he has lectured on Scripture across several academic and religious institutions, including the Marino Institute, the Priory Institute, the Milltown Institute, and the Lumen Dominican Centre. He is a founding member of the Tarsus Scripture School.
• Sean has extensive experience leading adult faith development initiatives and is the author of The Sign: Reading the Gospel of John.
• Sean is also offering That’s How The Light Gets In – reading the Bible in English with Leonard Cohen, a six day retreat at Bonnevaux Retreat Centre, Marçay, France.