When crises emerge and planes dip many of us for whom prayer is not a regular option find ourselves mumbling supplications that emerge out of our collective consciousness, begging unknown forces for a safe landing, parking spot, or another day of life. In a world torn by religious divides and fast changing attitudes to the sacred, prayer is both a common practice and a suspicious activity. And while the relationship with divine forces may have been quite different in Isaiah’s Iron Age, similar dissonance regarding the efficacy of prayer was already apparent. Does prayer ‘work’? Is it a worthy or required act in matters of personal or collective need? Should it be reserved for urgent situations?
In today’s chapter, the dramatic scenes in Jerusalem under Assyrian siege are retold, repeating many of the details already told earlier in the Book of Kings - but with an important poetic addition: King Hezekiah, his cloths torn, in fear of the Assyrian King’s Sennacherib’s cruel conquest sends messengers to Isaiah the Prophet to pray for the city’s survival. Isaiah doesn’t pray - he delivers a prophecy.
So the king decides to offer a public prayer -- - and his poetic pleas for salvation are recorded, including his interesting use of no less than four names for the source of all salvation. There’s more to say here about the lack of limits between roles of religions and political leadership but for now we’ll focus on the king’s choice of liturgy and theology.
What are these four names for the divine and what’s the purpose of their unique usage here?
יְהֹוָ֨ה צְבָא֜וֹת אֱלֹהֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ יֹשֵׁ֣ב הַכְּרֻבִ֔ים אַתָּה־ה֤וּא הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ לְבַדְּךָ֔ לְכֹ֖ל מַמְלְכ֣וֹת הָאָ֑רֶץ אַתָּ֣ה עָשִׂ֔יתָ אֶת־הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ הַטֵּ֨ה יְהֹוָ֤ה ׀ אׇזְנְךָ֙ וּֽשְׁמָ֔ע פְּקַ֧ח יְהֹוָ֛ה עֵינֶ֖ךָ וּרְאֵ֑ה וּשְׁמַ֗ע אֵ֚ת כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֣י סַנְחֵרִ֔יב אֲשֶׁ֣ר שָׁלַ֔ח לְחָרֵ֖ף אֱלֹהִ֥ים חָֽי׃
“O YHWH, Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, Enthroned on the Cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.
O YHWH, incline Your ear and hear, open Your eye and see. Hear all the words that Sennacherib has sent to blaspheme the living God!”
Isaiah 37:16-17
The first name, YHWH, is standard. By the 8th Century BCE or whenever this text was edited this becomes the place holder for most of the Judaic references to God.
Lord of Hosts is not as common - and the hosts referenced here are usually understood to be the celestial armies of angels that fight on behalf of the divine. The first to use the term was Hannah, the barren women begging for a son, praying before YHWH at the Shiloh tabernacle. Her prayer is considered the gold standard - and yielded the birth of her boy who will become the Prophet Samuel.
King Hezekiah is using this name here though it rarely shows up in this context or the Book of Kings because he likely needs assurance that an army of angelic forces will help lift the siege.
“Enthroned on the Cherubim” is rarer yet - alluding to the location of the prayer and the need for its geographical protection. The Holy of Holies contained the two cherubim and above them sat/dwelled the Divine Presence. We don’t exactly know what that holy ark of Jerusalem looked like during the first temple but it was likely similar to what was found in other pagan temples of the time - an actual deity sitting as a sovereign would upon two creatures of majestic might. For King Hezekiah to address the divine thus is to focus on the fear of the temple’s destruction and the loss of sacred status. It’s one of those very specific local prayers about an actual citation - not a generic plea for help.
And finally - Elohim Chai - The Living God. This very unique name of God only appears one other time in the Hebrew Bible- in Kings II chapter 19 - the equivalent of this chapter’s story, echoing the same prayer.
Why does the king use this totally unique name at this crucial moment?
Elohim Chai -- Living God --- The Divine Life Force
We will never know. Perhaps the serious crisis promoted the king to come up with his own new name for God, evoking the life force, the very essence of life?
When it comes to asking for help, for whatever reason, as serious as King Hezekiah’s or as simple as the ones each one of us faces daily - it’s on us to get creative, personal, specific. Whatever we choose, we are invited to learn from our ancients how to trust the power of our words, the humility of our relative strength, the hope in the best outcome and the life force that either listens or not but is pulsing through our prayers.
For the king, this is just one of two critical moments in which he’s challenged to call up the life force. Tomorrow’ chapter brings us, along with Isaiah, to his bedside, where death is lurking, but prayers persevere as well.
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I am more and more drawn to prayer. I am faced with a number of very dear and old friends who are all out of reach (living elsewhere) and are either in hospice or its precincts. I speak to them by phone regularly; I visit as best I can monthly, and otherwise I find I pray for them daily or whenever they come to mind. I have been now for some time, and I face the very real questions you raise at the beginning of this essay.
What I have come to is that prayer is the most difficult thing for a narcissist to do, and perhaps in the end the spiritual practice that is the most difficult. There is no audience., no apparent efficacy, no bragging rights.
The Jewish prophet Yeshuah offered this counsel: (Matthew 6:6)
When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
The place of prayer in the inner place, the closet, private, but also not available to interpretation, criticism or self-congratulation. It is the supreme act of faith because it is the most private.
What do I find to be the reward? There are many, though none may register by any metric. One is that prayer can and does infiltrate my daily life. I can now listen to someone sharing something with me and, instead of preparing my know-it-all advice, simply find the prayer inwardly that I wish for them and listen to their words with a quiet and inward attention. It seems possible that one might pray all the time, in gratitude, in compassion, in blessing, and praise. I am aware too that it may serve me as I approach my own last days.
shalom: Peter
Susanna recently saw an astonishingly good movie called, “call me by your name”.