Dispelling Confusion
“And all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.” Matthew 21:22
Prayer – In the midst of a long fast, I read this verse. Since it comes from the mouth of Jesus, it must be true. But so much of the time, it seems as if what I ask does not come to pass. I know that the problem is not on God’s side. He is El Shaddai. So, what am I missing? Perhaps I need to think in Hebrew, not in Greek.
The Greek word here is proseuche. It is a combination of pros (to) and euchomai (to wish). In the New Testament, this combined word almost always means prayer, rather than wish. It is more or less the technical word for prayer to God. But when we look at which words it translates from the Hebrew Bible, we find that it covers both tephilla and techinnah. A little detective work reveals that techinnah is used only 23 times, 14 of those concerning Solomon’s temple. This rare word means “to request favor, to ask of God.” We would use the English word, supplication, but techinnah is a bit more formal than that. Tephilla is used about 80 times, but even this is fairly rare. Tephilla carries the same nuance as techinnah, that is, it is a pleading prayer to God (for example, Psalm 4:2). Since there are more than three dozen different words for prayer in Hebrew, these two words barely scratch the surface of the Hebrew view on prayer. But Greek and English are both compressed prayer languages, with just a few words for describing all communication with God.
“So what?” you might say. “It’s nice to know all this, but how does it help me understand what Jesus means and why my prayers seem so anemic?” Here’s some help. Since Jesus isn’t speaking Greek, we can’t be sure exactly what Hebrew word He really used. All of the vast vocabulary of Hebrew prayer-words get compressed into this rather formal Greek word, so we don’t know precisely what nuances Jesus had in mind. Therefore, we are required to expand our understanding of prayer by doing our best to gain a Hebrew perspective through an investigation of the full range of Hebrew words – and then decide which word best fits the context here. What we discover is that there are several Hebrew words associated with pleading prayer (you can read about them in the Today’s Word devotionals from January 4 to 26 of this year). All of them rest on the idea of absolute trust in the character of God. My plea is not the basis of God’s answer. The fuel for divine intervention is my complete abandonment to Him. Pure prayer of supplication is stripped of any ego concerns.
When I look at the Old Testament context of pleading prayer, I find men and women who cry out to God in desperation. They use Hebrew words that imply agonizing speech, groaning, travail, lives stripped of every other option, and begging with faces to the floor. There is nothing casual about these kinds of prayers. They have life and death intensity.
Do you suppose that our failure to see God’s hand comes from the lack of desperate dependence? We think Jesus means “anything you want,” but if He is saturated with Old Testament thought, maybe He means “anything you can’t survive without.” Would that change the way we pray? I wonder.
