Conversing with God?
Hear my prayer, Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:1 NASB
Hear – Moses and David. The great Shema and the lesser Shema. “Hear, O Israel” and “YHVH, hear my prayer.” Both from the same root and the same consciousness. Both dependent on relationship. And both with multiple Semitic meanings.
“šāmaʿ has the basic meaning ‘to hear.’ This is extended in various ways, generally involving an effective hearing or listening: 1) ‘listen to,’ ‘pay attention,’ 2) ‘obey’ (with words such as ‘commandment’ etc.), 3) ‘answer prayer,’ ‘hear,’ 4) ‘understand’ and 5) ‘hear critically,’ ‘examine (in court).’” [1]
When the psalmist writes, “YHVH hear my prayer,” he is invoking a covenant relationship. “Turn Your face toward me,” presupposes that God will turn, that He is not like the hostile deities of the pagan world, but rather a God who cares. And this is why prayer is neither soliloquy nor conversation.
Do you remember what Heschel wrote?
“Prayer is not a soliloquy. But is it a dialogue with God? Does man address Him as person to person? It is incorrect to describe prayer by analogy with human conversation; we do not communicate with God. We only make ourselves communicable to Him. Prayer is an emanation of what is most precious in us toward Him, the outpouring of the heart before Him. It is not a relationship between person and person, between subject and subject, but an endeavor to become an object of His thought.”[2]
“The purpose of prayer is to be brought to His attention, to be listened to, to be understood by Him; not to know Him, but to be known to Him.”[3]
“The purpose of prayer is not the same as the purpose of speech. The purpose of speech is to inform; the purpose of prayer is to partake.”[4]
The psalmist is not addressing God, despite what our translation might imply. The psalmist is pleading to be recognized, as a subject pleads with the King. He is asking for an audience. He is less concerned (far less concerned) with the subject matter of his prayer than he is with the gaze of the Sovereign. “If only God will look in my direction.” Actually, nothing more need be said. Once God looks, all is known and I am known. And that is the heart of this “complaint,” mediation. If God looks, then everything else follows: obedience, answer, understanding, examination, attention. When you vocalize the feelings of affliction, you only need God’s attention. That’s enough. Isn’t it?
Topical Index: šāmaʿ, hear, attention, Psalm 102:1
[1] Austel, H. J. (1999). 2412 שָׁמַע. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 938). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Abraham Heschel, Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism (Free Press Paperbacks, 1959), p. 200.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., p. 202.
