Prayer

Praying is a special way of talking to God. In prayer, you can worship God, thank him or ask him for a favour, but also complain about things or confess your sins.

In Hebrew and Greek there is no one word that covers everything encompassed in the English word “prayer”. The words used in the Bible refer to different aspects of what we call “prayer”, for instance:

In the Old Testament, prayer is often extempore, spoken at a special occasion. For example, Hannah prays for a son at the Temple at Shiloh. She prays in silence, moving only her lips. From Eli’s reaction it is clear that this was unusual. After Samuel’s birth, Hannah prays a prayer of thanks and the words she uses on that occasion sound like a formula, comparable to the Psalms.

It is not until later Bible books, post Babylonian exile, that we see prayers that have a fixed form and are prescribed for certain occasions. Daniel, for example, prays three times a day facing Jerusalem, a way of praying related to the daily ritual of offerings in the Temple. This development can also be seen in the prayers in the additions to Daniel and the Greek book of Esther.