Speaking with God

Probing Old Testament Prayers for Contemporary Significance

Phillip G. Camp, Elaine A. Phillips

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781725283527
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

"Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy!" (Ps 86: 1). God's people, past and present, know that the Lord of all creation listens to their prayers for mercy, help, forgiveness, and justice. God's people cry out to the heart of their God, sometimes through intense struggle and perplexity, and they expect an answer. There can be no less in a true relationship. They also celebrate their experiences of God's faithfulness. There is no area of life outside the bounds of prayer. The essays in this collection, written by biblical scholars, explore Old Testament prayers in order to enrich our understanding of Israel's beliefs about and relationship with God. Equally important for each of the authors is the following question: Why do these prayers matter for the life of the church today?

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Prayers in the Hebrew Bible

Boundaries, Intentions, and Theological Interfaces

Elaine A. Phillips

Introduction

We are embarking on an exploration of individuals’ prayers as we encounter them in the Hebrew Bible. This venture invites us to pause with familiar biblical figures and listen again. As we do, our initial questions will be: what actually constitutes prayer? Does all second-person address to the God of heaven qualify as prayer, even if there is no perceived response? In addition, in the wealth of biblical narrative and poetry, we find a number of what we might label as failed attempts to communicate with God. What about those? Interwoven with these questions is the rich literary and theological fabric that lies inside whatever boundaries we draw.

Definition and Boundaries—“Are We Ever Not Praying?”

Even with the matter of definition, a number of interrelated issues must be sorted through. The distinctions below are not intended to create discrete categories. They are simply a means of formulating with some degree of order the components of a possible definition.

Verbal

We turn first to the matter of Hebrew prayer vocabulary. In addition to the noun, tefillah (prayer), and its related cognates, we encounter darash (seek, inquire), ‘atar (entreat), sha’al (ask), yadah (thank), and barakh (bless). “Calling upon the Name of the Lord” and “X said to God . . . ” are also signals in narrative portions of Scripture.1 These are not, however, entirely sufficient to cover what happens in conjunction with wide-ranging conversations with God. Often lodged deeply in the brokenness of human experience, prayer bursts forth in emotionally charged circumstances that prompt crying out, summoning, pleading, and seeking God’s face. The supplicant often asked for favor or grace (tekhinnah and cognate forms). Some of these reach a desperation level well beyond “conversation.”

Prayer may also include accusatory questions that emerge from doubt and fear in one’s wretched straits. “How long, O Lord?” is a familiar one, and it demanded a response. The divine Partner was occasionally called upon to “wake up” (Isa 51:9–10) followed by pleas to “protect, keep, guard, or deliver” (Ps 7:1–6 [2–7]). In dire circumstances, oaths and even curses might be uttered. Should these terms be caught in our vocabulary net or do they remain outside?

Beyond Verbal

To the verbal indicators of prayer, add physical involvement—tears, loud inarticulate cries, kneeling, lifting up hands, and falling prostrate to the ground. Those who prayed sometimes turned to music, because music has the capacity to transport the human soul when the vocabulary fails (2 Kgs 3:9–20). There are “sung prayers” beyond the boundaries of the recorded psalms. This foray into prayer vocabulary has already drawn us toward matters of form and motivation.

Form

In the psalms, we find praise and thanksgiving, confession and petition, pleas for deliverance and blessing, complaints, and laments, all of which have recognizable formal features. Does each of these shape our deeper understanding of the sovereign God to whom Israel directed its liturgy? At the least, having liturgical structures, especially for thanksgiving and blessing, is necessary to keep our prayers from being primarily in response to crises.

Among the characteristic forms, laments are worthy of special consideration because they juxtapose two apparently irreconcilable truths—the presumed utter trustworthiness of God alongside the devastating experience(s) of the one grieving. Further, there are those laments that say precious little about God’s faithfulness, and instead describe the heavy hand of God. The classic example is Ps 88, which is a microcosm of Job. The tragedy of human loss resonates through David’s lament over Jonathan (2 Sam 1:17–27). These anguished expressions prompted Goldingay to redefine the prayer of lament as outright protest.2 From there, it is a very short step to the uncertainty, fear, and anger that often underlie vows, oaths, and imprecations. Are these likewise lodged under the umbrella of prayer?

A further matter of form merits our consideration before turning to intentions and motives underlying biblical prayers. Our own prayers do not always arrive fully formulated. In fact, they are often feeble attempts bereft of substantial focus and shape other than self-centered grumbling. This is likewise true of the saints of the Hebrew Bible as they appealed to God in their straits. In sum, we might make a case for a rather wide range of vocabularies and forms.

Just as the section on “vocabulary” included non-verbal expressions, the accoutrements for prayer are noteworthy. Wearing sackcloth is sometimes associated with prayer (e.g., 1 Chr 21:16–17; Ps 35:13; Dan 9:3; Jonah 3:5–8). Prayer and fasting were occasionally conjoined (1 Sam 7:6; Ezra 9:3—10:6). What did these accomplish toward the efficacy of that prayer? Rituals such as pouring out water (1 Sam 7:6) were also part of the solemn gathering. Could it be that more serious circumstances required more liturgical “vestment”?

Intention: Call and Response

God’s people prayed because they were invited, in fact, commanded to do so. Even though the Israelites would be scattered because of their idolatry, God promised that when they returned to God, seeking him with all their heart, they would find him (De...