exultant joy: glad rejoicing, both the lift of gladness in the heart and the celebration it breaks out into
This is a poetic word for joy at its most exultant. It names the bright, overflowing gladness that a person or a people feels, and the standard word for ordinary joy is its constant companion: the two appear side by side so often that they work almost as a single phrase, joy and gladness. If there is a shade of difference, this word leans toward the heightened, celebratory end of joy rather than quiet contentment.
Because Hebrew rarely keeps joy private, the same word slides easily from the feeling to its expression. It can name the glad emotion within, but it can just as naturally name the singing, feasting, and glad noise that pours out of a celebration. The prophet Jeremiah's repeated line about the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, uses this word for the very sound of festivity that will either fall silent under judgment or return with restoration.
The prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah, reach for this word above all for the joy of rescue. It is the everlasting joy set on the heads of the redeemed as they return to Zion, the gladness that replaces mourning, the delight of a people brought home. So while the word simply means joy, it carries in the poets a strong pull toward the joy that God's salvation creates.