DOXOLOGY dŏks ŏl’ ə jĭ (δοξολογία, from doxa, “praise,” “honor,” “glory,” and logos, a “speaking,” “a saying,” “a word”; hence, “a praising,” “giving glory”): is used both in song and prayer. It was sung by angels to shepherds the night Jesus came into the world (Luke 2:14). It was sung by “the whole multitude of the disciples” the day Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday (Luke 19:37, 38). John reports hearing a doxology by angels around the throne in heaven (Rev 5:13), and later by “a great multitude in heaven” (Rev 19:1-3). In the OT all five books of the Psalter end with a doxology, the last comprising a whole Psalm in which “praise” appears thirteen times (Pss 41:13; 72:18f.; 89:52; 106:48; 150:1-6). In Christian liturgy the hymn known as “The Doxology” is sung every Sunday in a host of churches all over the world. It is composed of four short phrases, beginning with, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”

The Lord’s Prayer is traditionally concluded with the doxology: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matt 6:13n). It does not appear in some old Gr. MSS. In a different arrangement, it is in 1 Chronicles 29:11.

Paul uses the doxology rather sparingly as well as briefly. Nor does he subscribe to formula but to the spontaneous outburst of his soul at spiritual peaks. (Rom 11:36; 16:27; Eph 3:21; 1 Tim 1:17). The longest and most comprehensive doxology in the NT, and one frequently used as a benediction by pastors, is in Jude 24, 25.