02. The Naturalness of Biblical Prayer

The Naturalness of Biblical Prayer The Bible is the great religious classic of the world, and prayer is one of the highest exercises of religion. A study of Biblical prayer must therefore be of interest alike to the student of the Bible, and to the man of religious life and temper, whether he be a student or not. We must not, of course, expect from the Bible an answer to all the questions concerning prayer which a thoughtful man of today may ask himself. But this is, perhaps, even more of a gain than a loss. Instead of controversy, we have reality, and it is always good to face reality, and to have the facts thrust upon us, which are dwarfed or lost in the labyrinth of argument. Instead of discussions about the nature and value of prayer, we have perplexed and persecuted men pouring out their hearts to a God who is as real to them as their sorrow, and finding in that communion the strength that cometh in the night.

Just as the Bible assumes the existence of God, so it also assumes the naturalness of prayer. It does not answer, and, for the most part, does not even raise the problems which bear so heavily upon educated men today. What is the relation, for example, of prayer to natural law? Does it produce any effect in the world other than its effect upon the spirit of the man himself? Will prayer keep a steamer from colliding in a fog, or from foundering, when she strikes the rocks? Can a dying man be prayed away from the gates of death? Such an effect need not involve a violation of natural law; but are we to suppose that— albeit in accordance with natural law—events happen which would not have happened, and changes are effected which would not have been effected, but for prayer? If never another prayer rose from human lips and hearts, would the ordinary sequence of things be in any way affected?

Apart from the alleged inexorableness of natural law, there are other difficulties arising out of the nature of God. If He be omniscient, what, if any, is the real significance of our speech to Him? Our prayers do not instruct Him: “Your heavenly Father knows what things ye have need of.” If, then, He does not need to be told, do we need to tell Him? In prayer, are we not rather making our needs plain to ourselves than to Him? But more. His will is a beneficent will. We must suppose that He wills the good of men. Does He will that good the more for their supplications and the less for their silence? And if He did, would, He be such a God as reasonable men could worship?

Again, besides being beneficent, He is wise, and knows what is best for us. That is, He not only wills our good, but knows how to secure it; while we, who never foresee the remote consequences of our acts, and seldom even all their immediate consequences, may well hesitate to offer any specific petitions whatever, and may consider all these petitions most wisely expressed and included in the simple words, “Thy will be done.” As we cannot inform Omniscience, neither can we make suggestions to Wisdom. Can we do better than allow our destiny to be shaped by hands of Wisdom, guided by a heart of Love?

These represent some of the difficulties felt by the modern mind in relation to prayer as commonly under­stood. The universality and relentlessness of natural law, the omniscience, the love, and the wisdom of God, seem to combine to render prayer little better than an idle or at most a pious exercise, whose influence is restricted to the character of the man who offers it.

It is not the purpose of this volume to discuss these problems on their intrinsic merits and in their relation to the modern view of the world, but simply to ascertain the place and meaning of prayer in the religion of the Bible. The intellectual world of the Hebrews was in­finitely simpler than ours. The progress of exact science has created a scientific temper which is shared by thousands who have no technical knowledge of any particular science; and the increasing complexity of the world has been accompanied by an increasing difficulty in readjusting the ideas of an older and simpler civilization to the new situation. But, while it would be unreasonable to expect to find, in an ancient book, a final and adequate answer to modern problems, the time will never come, let us hope, when the religious thought and practice of such men as Jeremiah and Paul will be regarded as irrelevant or sterile. In religion the Hebrews are, and will remain the masters and teachers of the world. The problems to which we have alluded, are never formally discussed in the Bible. Its world is not our world, and the Hebrews had little genius for philo­sophical discussion of any kind. The only really continuous discussion in the Bible—the book of Job—is rather a series of eloquently reiterated assertions than a connected argument. But here and there are traces of the skeptical mood in which such problems are born.

What place would there be for prayer, for example, in that view of the world represented by the baffled thinker who regarded history as an endless and inexor­able cycle, in which “that which hath been is that which shall be; and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)? No good Hebrew would have dreamt of denying that there was a God; but there were many, both among the prosperous oppressors, and their poorer victims, who had their doubts as to whether God played any real and active part in human affairs. In the latter half of the seventh century, B.C., the comfortable, easy-going plutocrats, settled upon their lees, said to themselves, “Jehovah will not do good, neither will He do evil” (Zephaniah 1:12): that is, He will do neither one thing nor another; in other words, He will leave the world to run as it pleases, or rather, as they please, and can be safely trusted not to intervene. And two centuries later, men of a very different stamp are forced to the same conclusion by the cruel silence that follows their appeals to heaven. “It is useless to serve God, and what has been the good of keeping His command­ments?” (Malachi 3:14). The hardships and disillusions of post-exilic times often shook faith into a temporary skepticism, and confirmed the faithless in their infidelity. “What is the Almighty that we should serve Him, and what good would we get by praying to Him?” (Job 21:15). Doubtless this skepticism is created by a too utilitarian view of religion; but, when it is entertained by pious men, it is an honest skepticism, which Malachi can only meet by assuring the disconsolate that Jehovah, to keep Himself in mind of them, is meanwhile having their sorrows recorded in a book (Malachi 3:16), and one day He will intervene in a terrible judgment of fire.

Again it might be true that God gave good things to those who asked Him (Matthew 7:11), but it was undeniable that many good things were given to men whether they asked Him or not. He caused His sun to shine, and His rain to fall no less upon the unjust than upon the just. Thus while the impartial beneficence of nature would no doubt draw a prayer of gratitude from a devout heart, it would probably confirm the indifferent in their indifference. The Hebrew could not have been overwhelmed, as we are, by the unbroken sequence of cause and effect in the physical world. He had, of course, a keen sense of the rhythm and regularity of nature, with its seedtime and harvest, summer and winter, day and night (Genesis 8:22); but he had not our sense of the stern­ness of law, and therefore he could not have understood the problem of prayer, as it presents itself to a modern mind. To him God was directly responsible for every phenomenon; and, so far as our problem would have had any meaning for him at all, he would have given it a summary answer: with God all things are possible. To any objection based on the immutability of law, he could always have replied, “Ye do err, not knowing the power of God.” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” The fleece of wool may become wet or dry, the shadow on the sundial may move forwards or back­wards, the heavy prison doors, “the iron gate that leadeth into the city,” may open to the prisoner of its own accord. These things may seem strange to us; but to the Hebrew they were not only possible, but natural. His God was a living God, whose ear was not heavy, whose arm was not short; and why should He be less able than man to command and control His resources? The Hebrew was in no danger of involv­ing God in nature. Nature was not God, it was God’s. The earth was the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; might He not do with its forces what He pleased? There was no limit to the divine possibility, for God was able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

These considerations must be enough to convince us that the Bible has no theoretical solutions for our modern problems. But, by the utter simplicity and naturalness with which the Hebrew heart turns to God in every conceivable situation, a conviction of the reasonableness of prayer and of its indefeasible place in religion is more powerfully borne in upon us than any that could be produced by a merely theoretical solution. “Intercourse with God,” as Rothe has said, is most natural to man as man,” and it was peculiarly natural to the Hebrew, with his vivid sense of God. The common pursuits of life were hallowed by religion: the simple greetings on the harvest field between the master and his men take the form of short prayers. The sense of the perpetual need of God and the possi­bility of an unbroken communion with Him is not, of course, to be expected in the earlier stages. Men could not then have said, “I need Thee every hour.” But there came great hours when they were very conscious of their need, and then they turn to God as naturally as a man in difficulty turns to the friend who loves him. In moments of distress, perplexity, danger, sickness, farewell, and death, they lift up their eyes to One that is higher than they for the help which they do not find in themselves and cannot get from one another.

“What time I am in distress, I will cry to Thee.” This may not be the loftiest motive of prayer, but it is the most natural and elementary. After the inex­plicable defeat of Israel at Ai, Joshua takes his dis­appointment to his God in prayer (Joshua 7:7-9.), just as David after the inexplicable famine, sought the face of Jehovah (2 Samuel 21:1). It is easy to say that Joshua’s prayer is petulant, and that David seeks to ascertain the Divine will not directly, but through the oracle. That is not the point; these things were inevitable in early times. The point is that the appeal to God was natural in perplexity, and this is true, irrespective of the stage of religious development. When there are two suitable candidates to take the place left vacant by the death of Judas, the choice is only made after a prayer to the Searcher of hearts (Acts 1:24). In moments of doubt, and where a decision was important, the heart turned instinctively to God.

Face to face with danger, the appeal to God was peculiarly natural; and, as early Israel was beset more or less constantly by the obligations of warfare, prayer is often associated with the field of battle. Jonathan starts, with his armor-bearer, for his dangerous assault upon the Philistines, only after reminding him­self that Jehovah may work for them—Jehovah, who can save by few as by many (1 Samuel 14:6). Before an army set out upon the march, a brief prayer, in poetical form, was offered that the enemy might be scattered (Numbers 10:35), and Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 20:2 ff.) prescribes that, before an assault, the priests are to encourage the soldiers and to remind them that in the battle they will not be alone, but their God will be with them, to fight for them. In a similar spirit we find Jehoshaphat, on two occasions, anxious to ascertain the will of Jehovah—once before under­taking the campaign against Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings 22:5), and again before the assault on Moab (2 Kings 3:11). But there were other dangers than those of the battle-field. Ezra knows of the difficulties that will beset his party on their way from Babylon to Palestine; so, after pro­claiming a fast, he entreated his God for a safe and prosperous journey to the homeland (Ezra 8:22). Similarly, when the lives of Daniel and his friends are in peril, because the wise men are unable to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, they appeal for mercy to the God of heaven (Daniel 2:18). In sickness, as in danger, men turned to God. He was the Lord of life, and He could heal, if He would. Hezekiah prays to Jehovah with tears, when pros­trated by a sickness which seems certain to have a fatal ending (2 Kings 20:3), and the Chronicler takes it for granted that a pious king, when he is sick, will consult not the physicians, but his God (2 Chronicles 16:12). The beginning and the end of important enterprises were also specially committed to God in prayer. We have seen that prayer was offered when an army set out; it was also offered when the campaign was over (Numbers 10:36). The unfortunate alliance of Israel with Gibeon is ascribed by the historian to the fact that Joshua acted on his own responsibility, without first “asking counsel at the mouth of Jehovah” (Joshua 9:14). A new movement must be inaugurated with prayer. Though Paul and Bar­nabas have had the call of the spirit, they are not sent off upon their missionary tour till the brethren have prayed (Acts 13:3). And the end must be consecrated, as the beginning. There are two very touching and picturesque farewells in the book of Acts, both of which are hallowed by prayer. At Miletus Paul prayed with the Ephesian elders before bidding them good-bye (Acts 20:36); and after a seven days’ stay at Tyre, he was escorted to the shore by a large company, including the wives and children; “then we knelt on the beach and prayed and bade each other good-bye” (Acts 21:5).

Occasionally, but not often, life’s last great farewell is accompanied by a simple prayer. There are perhaps hardly half a dozen recorded instances of prayers of the dying. Samson (Judges 16:28 ff.) and Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:22) die with a prayer for vengeance upon their enemies. The dying robber besought Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom (Luke 23:42). Jesus (Luke 23:34) himself and Stephen (Acts 7:60) die with a prayer for the forgiveness of their enemies, the former commending His spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46), and the latter calling upon the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit (Acts 7:59). The enormous difference between these Old Testament and New Testament prayers is char­acteristic and suggestive. The former may seem un­worthy of so solemn an hour; but in truth they are little but a blunt expression of the desire to have justice vindicated. But even so, these prayers— the cry for justice and the cry for mercy—are typical of the broad difference between the two Testaments; but the prayers are alike in committing their case into the hand of God.

It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that man considered his relations to God exhausted by offering petitions to Him in distress. Gratitude is not so natural as petition, but it has its place, even in the earlier sources. If a prayer has been answered or an unexpected favor done, the grateful heart is impelled to express itself. When, for example, in answer to the somewhat naive prayer of Abraham’s servant for a sign by which he may discover Isaac’s future wife, the woman has been found, the servant “bowed his head, and prostrated himself before Jehovah and said, ‘Blessed be Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His loving-kindness and His truth towards my master.’” (Genesis 24:26 f.) Again in one aspect, the great war-ballads known as the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) are prayers of gratitude for victory. Hezekiah, who prayed with tears for his recovery from sickness, is represented as expressing his gratitude to the God who in love had delivered his soul from the pit (Isaiah 38:10 ff). The real date and theme of this poem are of no consequence to our present purpose: it is at any rate a proof that recovery from sickness was an occasion for gratitude. So the leper, “when he saw that he was healed, turned back with a loud voice glorifying God” (Luke 17:15). The duty of gratitude is specially obvious after an unmistakable cure; and though it is usually forgotten—for “where are the nine?”—it is none the less obligatory. Jesus is vexed when so natural a duty is neglected. “Were there none found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger?” Once thanks is offered for the sight of kindly human faces. When Paul saw the brethren who had come from Rome to Appii Forum to meet him, he thanked God and took courage (Acts 28:15).

These illustrations—and they could be multiplied a hundredfold—are enough to show how easily and naturally prayer came, whether in the form of petition or thanksgiving, to the men who move before us on the pages of the Bible. But nothing makes so powerful an impression, or so clearly illustrates the intimacy and immediacy of this communion with God as the ease with which prayers are interpolated in the ordinary course of a historical narrative. It happens that practically all the recorded illustrations of this in the Old Testament are confined to the autobiographical memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah, and this may possibly be explained by the growing prominence of prayer in the post-exilic period. It would be too much to say, however, that in similar circumstances such interpola­tions would have been impossible to pre-exilic historians, especially as they are paralleled in pre-exilic prophecy. The earlier part of the book of Jeremiah is full of such prayers, which we shall consider more fully on an­other occasion; and Hosea (Acts 9:14), in a moment of intense emotion, as he contemplates the depravity of Israel and its inevitable end, sends up to his God the swift wild prayer: “Give them, O Jehovah—what wilt Thou give them? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” But it is in Ezra, and especially in Nehemiah, that the phenomenon is most striking. After reciting at length the unexpectedly generous decree of Artaxerxes in favor of the Jews in their attempt to reorganize their ecclesiastical life, Ezra (Ezra 7:27 f.) breaks out into an enthusiastic prayer of gratitude to “Jehovah, the God of our fathers, who hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart to beautify the house of Jehovah which is in Jerusalem, and hath extended loving-kindness unto me before the king, and his counselors and before all the king’s mighty princes.” The effect, upon the reader, of this bright spontaneous outburst of prayer, following the recital of a formal decree, is nothing less than startling. A somewhat similar im­pression is created by the doxology, “Now unto the King, immortal, invisible,” following immediately upon the acknowledgment of the power of Christ “to save sinners, of whom I am the chief” (1 Timothy 1:17, cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:9 f.). This phenomenon of interpolated prayer is very frequent in the memoirs of Nehemiah. In the course of the narrative describing the impression made upon Sanballat and Tobiah by the efforts of the Jews to build the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah (Nehemiah 4:4 f.) breaks in with the prayer, “Hear, O our God, for we are despised,” etc.; and when the enemy, provoked by the rapid progress of the walls, began to consider the project of an assault upon the city, “we made our prayer unto our God” (Nehemiah 4:9). Just as Paul often closes an argument with prayer (Romans 11:33-36), so Nehemiah frequently ends a paragraph with prayer to his God, either to remember him for what he had done—for example, for his magnanimous conduct during his governorship (Nehemiah 5:19), for securing the payment of their dues to the Levites (Nehemiah 13:4), and for preserving the Sabbath from the encroachments of trade (Nehemiah 13:22, cf. Nehemiah 13:29; Nehemiah 13:31); or with a prayer to punish his enemies—in one case including a woman (Nehemiah 6:14)—for their machinations against him and his efforts on behalf of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 4:4 f.). Very interesting in this connection is the brief prayer he offers after the enemy had sought to intimidate the Jews and had prophesied failure— “But now (O God) strengthen Thou my hands” (Nehemiah 6:9) —a prayer which is all the more significant as, if the text be correct, there is no word for “O God” in the original. God was the ever-present fact. Most interesting of all, and very significant of Nehemiah’s God-ward attitude, and of the atmosphere of prayer in which—man of action though he was—he lived and moved, is the swift silent prayer for help he offers to the God of heaven before replying, when the Persian king asks him to name his request. “The king said to me, ‘ For what dost thou make request? ’ So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, ‘ If it please the king,’ etc.” (Nehemiah 2:4). This ingenuous and altogether incidental statement lights up, as in a flash, the whole career of Nehemiah. The courageous answer that follows the unspoken appeal to heaven is the best comment on the place and power of prayer.

Prayer, therefore, is regarded throughout the Bible as natural—natural as the existence of need and the sense of God; and as need is universal, prayer is the privilege of all. Out of the depths any man may cry for himself to God. Sometimes, indeed, overwhelmed by a sense of their own unworthiness, men felt that they needed a prophet to intercede for them (Jeremiah 42:2); but, as a rule, a man confesses his own sin, and craves help for his own need. Women, too, enjoyed the right of approach to the Deity in prayer. Naturally, there are relatively few illustrations of women praying, because women on the whole appear in the Bible, as in all ancient literature, less frequently than men; but in both Testaments illustrations occur. The allusion to Hannah’s prayer for a child at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:11) shows that already in very early times women had the right to pray at the sanctuaries. It is expressly mentioned that among the disciples gathered in the upper room who “continued steadfastly in prayer,” were women, with Mary the mother of Jesus (Acts 1:14). In 1 Timothy 5:5 it is the mark of a true widow to continue in supplications and prayers night and day; and the women in the Corinthian church apparently prayed, as well as prophesied, in public (1 Corinthians 6:5).

Naturally, public leaders occasionally appear in prayer. Kings are not very often mentioned in this capacity. Prayers are ascribed to David and Solomon, but owing to the somewhat general nature of the his­torical narratives, there is little opportunity for allud­ing to the private prayers of the kings. In a more personal narrative, however, like that of the sickness and recovery of Hezekiah, prayer occupies a more prominent place. Nor do we hear much of the prayers of the priests. The notices are nearly all general, such as that they blessed in the name of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 21:5. Cf. 2 Chronicles 30:27. Praise was one of the functions of the Levites; cf. 1 Chronicles 23:30). They were concerned rather with the sacrifices, and their prayers would probably be more general and formal than the prayers of individuals. Joel (Joel 2:17), however, in the distress occasioned by the locusts, represents the priests as weeping and praying. Doubtless the elders of a city, as its representatives, would pray, where its interests were specially implicated. In the case of a murder, for example, which cannot be traced, the elders of the nearest city are to confess its innocence, and to implore the divine forgiveness upon its people (Deuteronomy 21:6-8). Very different in circumstance, yet somewhat similar in spirit, is the suggestion of James (James 5:14) that, when a man is sick, the elders of the Church shall pray over him. In the Old Testament, however, the greatest masters of prayer appear to have been the prophets. With the exception of Jeremiah, their prayers are seldom re­corded, but there are many incidental allusions to be referred to later, which suggest that prophecy had its roots in prayer (Cf. Jeremiah 33:3). In the formal worship of the congregation, alike in Old Testament and New, the congregation simply said, “Amen.” (1 Chronicles 16:36) If the prayer be unintelligible, how, asks Paul, can the unlearned person be expected to say the Amen? (1 Corinthians 14:16) The use of the article suggests that this was the customary practice.

Finally, as need is universal, prayer must be equally possible to the foreigner and the Israelite: the Roman Cornelius may pray to God as well as the Hebrew Peter (Acts 10:2). Naturally the impulse of the foreigner is to pray to his own God; but—at any rate from the exile on—the thinkers of Israel cherish the hope of a time when, under the mighty impression made in history by the God of Israel (Cf. 1 Kings 8:41 f.), He will be worshipped by the whole world. Like the foreign sailors in the book of Jonah, they begin by crying each man to his own God, and end by praying to Jehovah (Jonah 1:5; Jonah 1:14). Hints of this uni­versal worship of Jehovah, of the time when “many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Jehovah,” (Zechariah 8:22) are already found in pre-exilic sources, where occasionally prayers are offered to Jehovah by foreigners.

It is probably no accident, however, that these prayers do not usually take the form of petition, but are rather a recognition of something that Jehovah has done for Israel. The marvelous deliverance of Israel from Egypt, for example, draws from Jethro the fol­lowing prayer: “Blessed be Jehovah, who hath de­livered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh; who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all gods” (Exodus 18:10). A similar ascription of praise to Jehovah is offered by the Tyrian Hiram, when Solomon approaches him with a request for timber to build the temple (1 Kings 8:3). Again, the queen of Sheba when she saw the marvelous glory and wisdom of Solomon, said, “Blessed be Jehovah thy God who delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel.” (1 Kings 10:9) It is singular and significant that these prayers should all begin in the same way, and should celebrate cir­cumstances or events distinctively Israelitic—the de­liverance from Egypt, the founding of the temple, the wisdom of Solomon. Exactly similar both in form and spirit is the post-exilic prayer in Daniel 3:28, where Nebuchadnezzar is represented as thanking the God of Israel for delivering Daniel’s three friends from the fiery furnace into which they had been cast (Daniel 4:34). Similar in spirit, though not in form, is the prayer of Darius, embodied in a decree, that the God of Israel should confound all who put forth their hands to destroy His temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 6:12). The triumph of the gospel of Jesus dealt the death blow to this particularistic view of religion. He taught men to pray not to the God of Israel, but to “our Father in heaven,” and that true prayer was that which was offered “neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem,” (John 4:21) but anywhere the wide world over that men worshipped God in spirit and in truth.