Prayer is commonly described as speaking to God or divine power. Yet biblical prayers are not pious monologues. The psalmists move beyond mere uttering of praises and revealing of their deepest thoughts and longings to a higher power by seeking to prompt a response from the divine Listener. The psalmists often implore God to “give ear” (listen) (Pss 5:1; 17:1; 39:12; 54:2; 55:1), “hear my prayer” (Pss 39:12; 54:2; 84:8; 143:1), “look” (Pss 11:2; 25:18; 80:14; 84:9; 119:132; 142:4), “answer me” (Pss 27:7; 102:2; 143:1, 7), “come to me” (Pss 101:2; 119:77), “make haste to (help) me” (Pss 38:22; 40:13; 70:1, 5; 71:12; 141:1), and “deliver me” (Pss 6:4; 7:1; 22:20; 25:20; 31:1-2, 15). The Psalms thus seek to assume the dynamics of vivid dialogues or interactions with God. Prayers to Yahweh are meaningful because “the God of Israel is not some personified natural numen, but in reality of his person he is the Lord, the king, the creator, and the judge of all beings.”1 The Lord refers to Himself as “I” (Ps 81:10), and thus makes it possible to address Him as “You” (Ps 90:1).
For the psalmists, praying to God is meaningful because God is the sovereign Creator, in contrast to the lifeless pagan idols which are the products of human hands (Pss 96:5; 115; 135:14-21; 136:5). If there is no Creator who is actively involved with His creation, then prayer is just a monologue directed to an unresponsive space, and so ceases to be prayer. Biblical prayers spring from the experience of God’s grace in creation and in the history of redemption, and are responses to God’s revelation (Pss 34:4; 54:6-7; 135:1-13; 136:1-26). The Lord has revealed Himself to Israel as the living God who responds to those who call upon Him (Pss 55:22; 135; 136). Therefore, Israel continually calls upon the Lord (Pss 116:6; 118:5; 145:19), which implies a living and dynamic relationship between God and His people. As the Creator and Savior, God initiates and sustains the dialogue with His people. James L. Mays points out that surely the psalmists have “no empirical proof to offer to us that the universe is not empty, void of any answer to the travail of human experience,” but they know what faith knows because they have already been addressed by a word, and venture to speak because they have already heard someone “speak.” Prayer thus is a witness that “God is, that he can be addressed, that one speaks to him uninhibitedly of life’s worst, that he hears and accepts.”2
The notion of the Psalms as vital dialogues with God is particularly highlighted in many Psalms where God speaks or responds in the first person, or where the psalmists, speaking of God, suddenly switch from third to first person to convey the impression of God’s addressing the people directly.3 The remarkable beauty and appeal of the Psalms as prayers lie in the fact that the Psalms are concurrently the pious prayers of believers and God’s inspired word. Praying the Psalms thus provides us with moments of intimacy with God when we experience what the apostle Paul describes in Rom 8:26-27:
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
The Psalms give us both the word which we utter to God and the word which God declares to us. We do not simply repeat the words of the Psalms, but we are impressed to assume the faith, devotion, and spiritual outlook of the psalmists, who uttered these prayers led by the Holy Spirit.
When we pray the Psalms, we stand in solidarity with generations of believers who have poured out their hearts before God with these inspired words and sought to be confirmed to God’s Word, rather than expecting God to be confirmed to their words. The Psalms are “prayers of a cloud of witnesses”4 (Heb 12:1). We witness that the words of the Psalms are true, and that we are committed to their values and expectations. Praying the Psalms brought together the people of Israel in one faith and one hope (Pss 106; 118; 122; 136) and likewise unites believers of all times as Jesus prayed (John 17).
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1 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Theology of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 33.
2 James L. Mays, The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 57.
3 For example, Pss 2:6-9; 12:5; 35:3; 46:10; 50:5-23; 60:6-8; 68:22-23; 81:6-14; 82; 89:3-4, 19-37; 91:14-16; 95:8-11; 105:11; 132:11-12, 14-18.
4 See note 3.