Summary of the Prayers in Deuteronomy

There are six prayer passages in the book of Deuteronomy. At the beginning of the book, Moses stands before a new generation of Israelites: those who will finally enter the Promised Land. He recounts what happened during the decades in the desert: the struggles, sufferings, wars, and betrayals. It is not all negative; some of the ways God protected them is also mentioned.

But most of the speech serves as a warning to the people who are preparing to enter the Canaan and will have to fight for the land. In a book such as this, we might expect plenty of prayers of intercession and petition. Yet, Deuteronomy contains only one intercession and no petitions; there are three blessings (the last of which is made up of twelve blessings), an intercession, a praise, and a thanksgiving.

We have noted that, at least in modern times, our prayers tend to be heavy on asking and begging and light on praise and blessing. When we seek something for ourselves or others, we ask for things. When we suffer, or when we see others suffering, we ask for help.

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. Asking for things from God is encouraged throughout the Bible. Yet if our primary types of prayers are petition and intercession, while the major types in the Bible are praise, thanksgiving, and blessing, this might be a sign that we are focusing too much on ourselves. We stress how we relate to God, but most biblical prayers focus first on God and how He relates to them.

The first two prayers appear during Moses’ speech to the people as they prepare to enter the Promised Land (1.11; 3.24–25). The first is a blessing; the second is a praise. These prayers teach us that our prayers can be offered with boldness because we trust in God’s power. We can even do so in the midst of an uncertain and scary future.

The third prayer is another blessing. It reminds us to remember the everyday things of life as blessings (8.10). The next prayer is an intercession by Moses (9.26–29) and an example of prayer in an extreme times. It is prayer as a marathon. This is followed by a thanksgiving for “first fruits” (26.13-15), thanking God for the first crop of the harvest year. It reminds us of how God is connected to us in every part of our lives, in the good and bad, and we can use those times as reminders to thank him for all things.

The final prayer is a twelve-fold blessing pronounced by Moses upon the twelve tribes (33.2–29). Here, we find four types of blessings: a blessing of strength and survival, a blessing of the “now,” a blessing for help in one’s work, and a more traditional blessing of a gift. These twelve blessings are an example of how rich and varied blessings can be, and how a blessing can overlap with other types of prayer.

Though the number of prayers in Deuteronomy is few, the variety, as in the other books we have examined, is rich. Not only are there prayers that can take many forms (intercession, blessings, praise, etc.), but even within those forms there can be variety (the four kinds of blessings).

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