Prayer in the Hebrew Bible

Prayer in the Hebrew Bible is an evolving means of interacting with God, most frequently through a spontaneous, individual or collective, unorganized form of petitioning and/or thanking.

The first notable prayer[citation needed] whose text is recorded in the Torah and Hebrew Bible occurs when Abraham pleads with God not to destroy the people of Sodom, where his nephew Lot lives.

God sends two angels to the city, which is ultimately destroyed with "burning sulfur"[8] when they cannot find the ten requisite good people.

[9] When Abraham is an old man, he makes his head servant, who while not named specifically, is almost certainly Eliezer of Damascus,[10] promise to find his son Isaac a wife from his people to marry.

It takes on a petitioning tone, as opposed to the argumentative one prominent in the prayers of other characters, including his master, whose relationship and interactions with God are very different.

[16] Jacob's prayer does not seem to impact his optimism, for when Esau approaches, he divides his children among his maidservants and wives, so as to protect them from what he still feels is an imminent attack.

The one occasion that is most definitely prayer takes place when, in the Book of Exodus, following the making of the Golden Calf, he prays for God to be merciful with his people.

Eugene Peterson suggests that to Eli, the "normal way of prayer" was "by means of ritual, incense, and animal sacrifice, a gathering of the community directed by a priest."

[23] Moses mandates that one who goes to offer the sacrifice recite a basic creed, declaring his people's heritage and history, as well as a prayer of thanks to God for the fruits they have harvested.