Prayer in Times of National Apostasy: The Theology of Prayer in the Books of the Kings (Part One)
This is part one in a four-part paper that examines prayer throughout the Books of the Kings. I’m excited to be releasing the other sections soon!
Three millennia ago, in a dusty stretch of land between the Great Rift Valley and the Mediterranean Sea, peasants, peddlers, and princes lived and died. They were not so different from us, even if they lived under different rulers and had very different lives. At the end of the day, they were still human beings with hopes and heartaches, virtues and vices, plans and problems.
The context of ancient Israel, however, seems foreign to us, for it was also a land of magic and mystery. In this fairy-tale realm, evil rulers fight supernatural forces. Prophets turn the weather on and off. Armies of angels reveal themselves to peasants. Palaces echo with the sounds of spiritual struggles. Indeed, Palestine presents us with the paradox of the mundane. Life in ancient Israel appeared mundane: an endless routine of planting and harvesting, surrounded by the earthen walls of one’s home, the earth beneath one’s sandals, and the grains grown from the earth. Modern life appears to be so much more spectacular: air travel, skyscrapers, and ubiquitous Wi-Fi. And yet we are the ones who live in the mundane: our bland naturalistic context leaves us quite certain that we will never encounter an angel, talk with God in our dreams, or change the weather through prayer.
Within this spiritual world, the ancient Hebrews developed an intense recognition of the power of prayer. The prayers of those in covenant relationship with Yahweh, God of Israel, had powerful effects. These prayers reversed the course of nature, changed the history of the nation, and impacted the lives of believers and unbelievers alike. Indeed, it was the prayers of ancient Israel, as much as the great orations or the bloody battles, that determined the history of the sacred commonwealth. The purpose of this study is to observe those prayers, and then to imitate the ancients so that our prayers, also, will break through the mundane into the realm of the supernatural.
The Position of Prayer in the Books of the Kings
In the middle of the sixth century BC, somewhere in the Mesopotamian city of Babylon, an unknown scribe sat down to write the history of the decline and fall of the Hebrew Commonwealth. Using written sources that are now lost to history, this author traced the spiritual tides of his people. Not only would he reveal the cultural heritage of Israel; he also aimed to show that his nation was blessed only so long as she was committed to Yahweh. Over the centuries, this ‘Book of the Kings’ was eventually divided into two books, until it reached us in the double volumes of ‘First Kings’ and ‘Second Kings.’
The history begins with the spectacular rise of Solomon, most majestic of any Hebrew monarch, in 970 BC. Solomon’s death was followed by fragmentation: the Davidic dynasty maintained a tenuous grasp on the two southern tribes, while a carnival of dynasties ruled the ten northern breakaway tribes. Judean kings were nominally Yahwists, but Israelite dynasties tended to reject traditional religion. These were times of national apostasy, as pagan altars swallowed the blood of infant sacrifices, Baal-temples functioned as ritual brothels, and government officials persecuted the faithful. The renaissance of paganism was most profound under the Omride Dynasty and its representative king, Ahab. Eventually, both kingdoms were swallowed by larger goes: Northern Israel by Assyria in 723 BC, Southern Judah by Babylon in 586 BC.
Overlooking the Judean capital of Jerusalem was the great temple of Solomon. This center of Yahweh worship was a unique national treasure of moral and spiritual value. Here, in a temple that housed no image of a god, pious Israelites came to worship the Deity who claimed to transcend national boundaries. Even as he declared that he ‘sits above the circle of the heavens,’ Yahweh appointed the temple to be a unique connection-point between heaven and earth. It was a place where ordinary Hebrews – as well as gentiles – could approach a transcendent God. “The temple itself functions as a mediator, a communications switchboard connecting heaven and earth…once prayer is offered toward the house, it will be delivered to Yahweh, who ‘hears from heaven’…In the temple, Yahweh comes near; he does not remain at a distance to hear prayer and to flick a distant switch. He enters into Israel’s space to open his eyes and ears to their cries and to stretch out the arms of his temple toward his people” (Leithart, 69-70).
This was one of the primary functions of the temple – to function as a ‘house of prayer,’ and not only for Jews, but even ‘for all nations.’ A cooperative Jewish and Sidonian project, the temple offered to gentiles the opportunity to intercede with a God who claimed authority over them. The temple functioned as a magnet for those who heard of the power of Yahweh, and the answered petitions of pagan converts also redounded in praise to Yahweh, as Solomon himself prayed:
“Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.”
1 Kings 8:41-43
The ancient temple of Solomon has long since been demolished, replaced by a stream of other religious buildings: Herod’s Temple, a shrine to Roman Jupiter, and now the Muslim Dome of the Rock. But we are not without our own heavenly connection-point. A thousand years after Solomon built his temple, a Galilean Rabbi proclaimed that his body was a temple. His biographer, John, asserted that Jesus is God ‘tabernacling’ with us. Here is the new connection-point between earth and heaven, the place where our prayers are answered.
Presiding over the city of Jerusalem and its two-tribe kingdom was the monarch of Judah. His role was both civil and spiritual. As the physical descendent of David, the king exemplified the ‘representative Israelite’ (Leithart, 69); he claimed the promises of David’s heirs, inheriting the position of ‘Yahweh’s son’ (2 Samuel 7:14). This made the anointed king (the ‘Christ’) a mediator for the nation, whose prayers were offered on behalf of all Israel. Of course, “Israelites are permitted to approach Yahweh individually without the mediation of the king, but Solomon’s entire prayer appeals to Yahweh to hear the prayers of the people. Individual Israelites and even individual foreigners address Yahweh about personal as well as national afflictions…but first the anointed king, the Christ, opens a channel of communication” (Leithart, 69). Modern prayers require this just as much and find it in the ultimate Mediator-King Jesus.
Combining, then, the institutions of temple-connection and mediator-king, the ancient Hebrews had confidence that their prayers would receive a hearing before God. These institutions, however, were founded on the certainty that Yahweh himself was in a unique relationship with the Israelite nation. God was addressed as one who ‘keeps covenant and mercy’ with the Hebrew nation. These two specific words – ‘berith’ (covenant) and ‘chesed’ (loyal love/mercy) – formed the bedrock foundation on which God operated. Yahweh was God of all nations, but he had a unique relationship with Israel, cemented by a covenant (berith) instituted on a distant mountain-top in Sinai. Yahweh’s claim to fame, among others, was his faithfulness – his commitment to keeping his promises, no matter how grim the situation might look. This inspired his followers to commit themselves wholehearted to his loyal love (chesed). Because of Yahweh’s unique care, his followers could petition him to redress national grievances. The prophet Elijah used this special benefit to prosecute a religious lawsuit against a rebellious nation. Hezekiah invoked God’s grace when the chosen nation was on the verge of catastrophe. But Yahweh’s loyal love was also personal, extending to individual believers; he was interested in giving good gifts to needy people and showing kindness in hard times; this is why he gave a son to a Shunamite woman and relieved an indebted widow from her impossible obligations. The God of Israel cared about the course of history, to be sure, but he was not too busy to show indulgent favor to all his followers.
This, then, is the position of prayer in the Books of the Kings. Pious Israelites were confident of a hearing because the temple served as a connection-point with heaven while a Davidic heir opened up a pathway for their prayers. The God they worshipped stood in a unique relationship to them because he was bound by a covenant (berith), and his faithfulness guaranteed that he would always look on them with indulgent loyal love (chesed). It is no wonder, then, that these ancient believers were such powerful pray-ers when they had such confidence that their prayers would be effective.
