A Weeping Word
Nevertheless, You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to You. Psalm 31:22
Cried – There is no better place to discover the range of prayer than in the Psalms. In fact, a great number of the Psalms are actually called prayers. But guess what? Yesterday’s word “to pray” (athar) does not occur a single time in all the Psalms. Instead, we find words like this one – shawa – to cry out for help. In the English translation, shawa is transformed into a verbal expression (“I cried”), but in Hebrew it is a special form that implies two important things: first, it is an intense, personal expression and secondly, it is a continuous action. In fact, this form of the root is not treated like a verb at all. It is treated like a noun.
What does this bit of grammar mean? It means that the crying out is not something that accompanies prayer. It is the prayer! Treated as a noun, this word names the thing called prayer and what it names is my intense, personal, emotional, continuous crying out for help. My prayer is the agony I lift to God. I may weep. I may not. But the fact that I bring my cry (noun) before God is my prayer in a weeping word.
Most of the time prayer in the Old Testament is vocalized. It is spoken prayer, not the “silent” prayers that dominate our idea of speaking to God. In fact, the expectation that prayer will be spoken and heard is so strong that the priest condemns Hannah for her silence, believing that she is not praying at all. The Bible never explains this assumption. But maybe we can add some insight.
The vast majority of prayers in the Psalms use words like shawa. These words are sighing, groaning, roaring, grieving, pouring out one’s soul, thanking, praising, magnifying, singing, shouting and rejoicing. Can you imagine any of these acts done silently? The point of these words is that they express overflowing emotions. They are not intended to be bottled up. God wants to hear them out loud because out loud they identify you as His dependent child for the entire world to hear.
But, of course, we have opted for order. We can’t have everyone praying out loud all at the same time. It would be chaos (really? – then who are we praying to?) and confusion (did we think God couldn’t sort it out?). But mostly it would upset our impotent, milk-toast version of prayer where we sort of fiddle around while some paid professional utters eloquently practiced verbiage for us to hear and approve. You get a choice. You can pray like the Pharisees – sound and fury signifying nothing – or you can pray like David – out loud, from the heart, to God alone, in continuous, personal crying.
I recommend shawa.
