Ancient Prayers and Biblical Prayers: Types

In the ancient world, all religions and similarities between the types of prayers offered to their gods and goddess. This makes sense, of course, because prayer is communication, and all communication takes certain forms. Here are some of the major types of prayer we find in ancient religions: Name Prayers, Congregational Laments, Hymns, Personal Laments, Petitions, and Intercessions.

Name Prayers. These were the simplest form of prayers in the ancient near east. “Assur is great,” “Sin [the name of a god] heard my prayer,” and “My God has dealt compassionately with me.” As in the Hebrew Bible, parents often named their children after these short phrases as an expression of thanks or praise to the god(s) for hearing the prayer (Saul means “God hears,” Micah means “There is none like God). Other examples are “My God, I am alone,” “I trust in Bel’s word,” “I wait on God,” and “I trust Enlil.” [1. Thorkild Jacobson, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven: Yale Universrity Press, 1976), 164.]

Hymns.  The earliest Mesopotamian prayers we have are mainly petitions that rely on some sort of magic, but  the dominant form of prayer later were works of praise or lament in what we would call “hymn form.” [2. Jacobson, 15.] The purpose of praise was to bless a god or goddess and make them more favorable to hearing the human requests. (Laments had a similar function in that they would remind the god of past happiness or to try to touch the heart of the god to feel pity for the offerer). Such hymns are found in the Bible, too, but much less often appear to be attempting to manipulate God. More often, it seems that the attitude behind it is that God does hear all prayer, so there is no need to “get his attention.” But there are a few such prayers, as we will see in our study.

Sometimes these prayers are offered in an imperative mode rather that as a request; that is, they simply state what the god or goddess does. An example is the Egyptian prayer of Neb-Re to the god Amon for healing his son from a sickness:

 “You are Amon, the lord of the humble, who appears at the voice of the poor. If I call to you when I am distressed, you come and rescue  me. You give breath to the one who is weak; you rescue the one who is imprisoned.”

Lament. Like biblical prayers, the longer prayers of complaint and lament basically fall into three types: physical, mental, or emotional distress, adversity, and divine disapproval.[3. Patrick D. Miller, They Cried Unto the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 15.] Sometimes the lament includes the reason for the suffering, which is sometimes attributed to the sin of the supplicant.  Often these prayers were inscribed on objects such as tools, bowls, weapons, or statues, and then placed in the temple or sanctuary area (these were called “votive” objects. At some point, prayers written on paper replaced votive objects.

Congregational Laments. These are the same as above, but are offered to an entire group of people because the whole community is suffering. Sumerian prayers contain several laments over entire cities, the most famous of which is “Lament for the Destruction of Ur.” The end of this lament has a moving prayer which asks the goddess Nanna to absolve the people of their guilt and restore the city:

“O Nanna, whose penetrating gaze searches the innermost parts, may those whose hearts have suffered so much evil appear pure to you, may the hearts of your people who are in the land appear good to you, and, O Nanna, in your city again restored they will offer up praise for you.” 

Note the similarity to this and the congregation laments found in the Psalms and Lamentations over great losses of cities and the temple. The Sumerian prayers have little talk of an entire nation’s repentance and self-abasement in order to gain the god’s favor. This is apparently unique to Israel, which seems to take a personal religion to a national level including a moral sensitivity, penitence, and a desire for forgiveness. not just relief and restoration.

Petition. These are found as both general and specific prayers. One scholar[4. The scholar is Werner Mayer, who discussed this in a German work entitled Untersuchungen zur Formensprache Der Babylonischen “Gebetsbeschewörungen” on pgaes 211-90. Even if you can read German, it is a pretty technical study.] has described fourteen types of petitions (perhaps a bit much; some of these have considerable overlap):

1. For the deity to turn and hear in his or her own interest.
2. For one’s destiny or fate. 3) For help (often in judicial or law language).
3. For compassion, grace, mercy, and deliverance.
4. For words that bring happiness to the praying one or words of blessing.
5. For the deity to intervene.
6. For the removal of estrangement, reconciliation, reestablishment of relations between the deity and the petitioner.
7. For one to be protected by gods or spirits.
8. For the right word to be received or  for obtaining one’s wishes.
9. In reference to one’s environment, place in community, or to be without shame.
10. To become pure (free of sickness, demons, sins, dangers, omens, etc.).
11. for deliverance from evil (sickness, demons, sorcery, enemies, sins, ominous omens, etc.).
12. For signs (against threatening signs or omens and in behalf of good signs).
13. For life and life’s goodness (health, long life, prosperity, joy of life).

Most of these prayers of lament and petition begin with a address or salutation to the deity and are addressed to gods of the underworld or of healing. This may suggest that sickness or death are the purpose of the petition, but they could be metaphorical, as many of these types of images are also used in biblical prayers metaphorically—especially in the Psalms. The beginning of the petitions often contain honorific titles for the god/goddess and hymnic material which praise the diety in terms of power, righteousness, protection, administration of righteous judgement, compassion, virtue, and magnificence.

Intercession. Sometimes a Mesopotamian prayer asks one god to intercede with another god on behalf of the person praying. This might be a personal god, as in this prayer: “May his personal god, Shul-utula, forever stand before Ningirsu in Eninnu (praying) for his (i.e., Entemena’s) life.” [5. Jacobson, 159-160.]  In Egyptian religion, one also approached the gods through intermediaries, but these were often statues of deified kings or rulers or important office-holders. One statues has an inscription that reads:

“I am the messenger of the mistress of the sky, I belong to her outer court. Tell me your petitions so that I can report them to the mistress of the Two Lands, for she hears my supplications.” [6. Siegfried Morenze, Egyptian Religion, p. 102.  An Egyptian rarely approached a diety with direct requests. Usually one came with praise and blessing, even if petition was the final intention. The petitions appeared at the end of the prayer, showing why all the praise was there. For more, see Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (New York: Seabury, 1979).]

Intercession is found in many biblical prayers, but not ever asking one god to intercede to another, being a monotheistic faith. Perhaps the closes we find to that idea is Paul’s word’s that the “Holy Spirit intercedes” between humans and God (Romans 8.26–27), or that Jesus is an intercessor. But this is quite different that multiple Gods, since God and Jesus and the Spirit are considered One. However, people in the Bible intercede for others, and often priests, prophets,  are asked to pray on behalf of someone else.