THE ITINERANTS' CLUB

THE RECORD OF JESUS'S PRAYERS

THE Bible is the prayer book of ecumenical Christianity. From the days of Seth, when it is formally set down that "men began to call upon the name of Jehovah" down to the final prayer of the Apocalypse "Even so come, Lord Jesus," the Scriptures are full of prayers. Even a complete prayer of Cain, Seth's older brother, and its answer, is quoted, while it is easily seen that Abel must have been a man of prayer; and from these facts as well as from others, it is clear that our first father, Adam, must have both practiced and preached it.

The last Adam, even Jesus, had the habit of prayer to a marked degree, and it is delightful to find frequent and formal records of this habit in the Gospels. Beyond question the Saviour was taught to pray from his childhood, as he frequently quotes from the prayer book of his people, notably and with a depth of pathos beyond measure, in the words of the psalmist which so perfectly expressed his own desperate condition in the hour of his crucifixion, and in the Aramaic version which his Galilean mother had taught him, "Eloi, Eloi lama Sabachthani."

His pronounced fondness for the divine Father's house and business, that is, his church and worship, when he went up to Jerusalem for the first time with his parents, at the period of adolescence, points in the same direction, while we learn from Saint Luke who appears to have made special research in respect of such matters, that each of the crisial steps in our Lord's career was taken in the spirit and atmosphere of prayer. We are informed that the aim of one of the parables was to the end that men ought always to pray and that Jesus himself said when addressing formal prayer to the Father at one time, "And I know that thou hearest me always," both of which passages show that prayer was a fixed habit with him. Jesus lifted up his prayer as his eyes unto heaven when he would multiply the barley loaves and few small fishes; he prayed for power to unlock the grave-grasp on his loved friend Lazarus; at his baptism he was praying when the heavens opened and vocal and visible answer was vouchsafed; when he would finally select his Apostolic group he continued all night in earnest prayer to God; his glorious transfiguration took place after a similar prolonged period, "and as he prayed his countenance was changed," and again the Father's voice made assuring answer; while Jesus's announcement to Peter on the night of the betrayal of special concern and prayer for him is one of extreme significance and value. But in addition to these and many other incidental references to our Saviour's custom in prayer which may be summed up in the unique appreciation of his attitude toward his passion with the words, "In the days of his flesh, he offered up supplications and prayers with strong crying and tears and was heard in that he feared," we have several forms of words uttered by him

in its exercise which are among the most precious memorabilia embalmed in the Gospels.

The seven recorded prayers of Jesus comprise a group of perfect types in prayer suited, if rightly understood, to every sort of human condition and need. The chronological order of their occurrence is probably as follows:

1. The Prayer of Exultation, or Holy Joy: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth" (Matt. 11. 25-27, and Luke 10. 21-22). This ecstatic utterance of Jesus is without parallel even in the Scriptures. It is practically the same in both Matthew and Luke, though the latter gives the fuller background. That was a great moment in the Saviour's public ministry when seventy men, full of new-born enthusiasm over their power to cast out demons, returned to make report to the Master of their first successes. He did not curb their exuberant spirits but gave to them right direction and himself broke forth in this unrestrained measure. The meditation beginning, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father," is not to be severed from the context but is an integral part of the prayer.

2. The Prayer of the Universal Church: "Our Father which art in heaven" (Matt. 6. 9-13, and Luke 11. 2-4). Perhaps it is not entirely correct to think of this as one of our Lord's prayers, although its artistic balance and manifest poetic form, when read and rightly rendered from the Greek, mark it as not a spontaneous but a carefully wrought utterance, at once the delight and the despair of devout souls, both for its extreme simplicity and comprehensiveness. While it was manifestly given at the urgent request of his disciples, as a form of words for their guidance, the spirit which it so exquisitely bodies forth is one with the entire series of Jesus's prayers.

3. The Prayer at Lazarus's Grave: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me" (John 11. 41, 42). The atmosphere of this prayer is one of deepest sympathy and mental distress. Four times the record directly voices it: "When he saw Mary weeping.... he groaned in spirit".... "and was troubled.".... "Jesus wept." ... "Again groaning in himself cometh to the grave." After offering the prayer itself, which is doubtless quoted only in part, this same high-wrought pitch is struck again when "he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth."

4. The Prayer at the Messianic Climax: "Father, glorify thy name" (John 12. 27, 28). Here again the record reflects the deepest agitation. On the one hand, the pilgrim throngs had given triumphal entry to Christ as King, and the Pharisees were saying among themselves: "Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him." On the other hand, a serious and significant company of Greeks had sought special interview with him and on being presented formally by Andrew and Philip, Jesus exclaimed: "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified," and again, "Now is my soul troubled." Then follows the fourfold prayer itself to be instantly answered by the voice from heaven and reflected in the startling word of Jesus: "Now is the judgment of this world."

5. The Prayer of Priestly Intercession: "Father, the hour is come;

glorify thy Son" (John 17. 1-26). This is the one long prayer of Jesus, and how priceless a possession of the Christian Church! At last the desperate hour of doom draws on, but there is no tremor nor slightest sign of haste nor fear. "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world," he says, “and lifting up his eyes to heaven" he poured forth a prayer which voices every phase and relation covered by the divine atonement. Well do the Germans call this the Holy of Holies.

6. The Prayer of Gethsemane: "Abba Father ... take away this cup. .. Nevertheless" (Matt. 26. 39-42; Mark 14. 36; Luke 22. 42). Here, too, our souls are heavy for sorrow and silence is at least golden.

7. The Prayer of Golgotha: "Father, forgive them. ... Father, receive my spirit" (Matt. 27. 46; Mark 15. 34; Luke 23. 34-46). Here is proof of Christ's deity. Though his soul had been troubled in the temple and wrung with trepidation as the hour of agony approached, though he had cast about in the Olive garden for some possible escape of the bitter cup, yet now that the falling of the victor's lash, the piercing of the thorn crown, and of the nails and the lifting of the cruel tree has taken place, his first appeal is that mercy may be granted unto his merciless murderers, and his last, that his own spirit may be received back into the bosom of his Father. Such outreach and such equipoise are not short of divine.

ARCHEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL RESEARCH

JOB OF THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr., has recently called attention to an interesting parallel between the literatures of Babylonia and Israel. He styles his article "The Babylonian Job." Though there is no direct evidence of immediate connection between the story of Job as written upon the cuneiform tablets and that of the Bible, yet according to Professor Jastrow, it is "quite possible that the Babylonian tale was a prototype of the story of Job," the crowning piece of poetry in all the ancient Orient. The foreign origin of Job of the Hebrew Scriptures has never been questioned. He is pictured as a non-Israelite, residing outside the pale of the Jewish Church, unacquainted with the Mosaic law and its minute ceremonial regulations. His three friends, too, judging from their names and places of residence, were foreigners, strangers to the commonwealth of Israel. They, as Job, belonged to the bne Kedhems (sons of the East) that is, inhabitants of that undefined territory extending as far east and north as the Euphrates and as far south as Arabia Petræa and Felix. It is also a significant fact that the early Christian and Moslem writers bear testimony to the popularity of the story of Job throughout the entire Orient. The tablets, four in number, containing about three hundred lines (though there are three copies, besides some fragments) on which the story of the Babylonian Job is written were discovered among the treasures (now in the British Museum) of the great brick library of Ashurbanapal, King of Assyria, 668-626 B. C. It is this same library that has furnished us the Babylonian versions of the Deluge and Creation, and other valuable literature. What revelations may yet be in store for us from the 100,000 tablets and fragments still remaining undeciphered in the British Museum and other similar institutions in Europe and elsewhere? The hero of the Babylonian poem-for this story, too, is poetic in form-is Tabi-utul-Bel (good is the protection of Bel), a king of ancient Nippur, who, to judge from the name and other internal evidence, must have lived prior to 2000 B. C. Though the king lived at that early age, it is more than probable that the poem in the form we now possess it is an elaboration and a later copy of an original, made by some Babylonian priest. This is in harmony with the current view regarding the book of Job. For are not all agreed that the hero of the Hebrew poem is much older than the poem itself, and that he lived not later than 2000 B. C.?

Tabi-utul-Bel, like Job, was noted for his piety, and also for his loyalty to the gods. We say the gods, for, unlike Job, he was a polytheist. He dwells at length upon his devotion to Bel and his consort, the goddess Belit. Again, unlike the hero of the book of Job, scarcely a word is said of the Babylonian king's treatment of his fellow men and subjects. He emphasizes the fact that he set aside portions for Bel, that he remembered

Belit with food, that he humbled himself before the gods, and never forgot their festal days, that he had been constant in prayers and services, that he had faithfully taught his subjects their duties to the gods, and yet, notwithstanding all his loyalty and piety, Bel overwhelms him with disaster, and subjects him to untold sufferings and horrible disease. For comparison we shall cite a few of the more remarkable passages from his lament, which find parallels more or less perfect in the book of Job. He says:

"The disease changed the color [of the skin] from yellow to white: 1

I was cast upon the ground and thrown upon my back: "

Mine eyes be closed, bolting them up as with a lock: "

A king-I have been transformed into a slave:

My companions avoided me as a madman: "

I was cast aside by my own circles: "

The days were full of sighs, the nights-tears: "

The mouth full of groans, the years distress: 7
The entire day the pursuer [disease] was upon my track: "
In the night he allowed me no respite: and '
My joints were tortured and twisted with pain:

6

I cried to the god, but he did not show me his countenance :
Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven? 10
The plan of a god full of mystery who can understand it? 10
How can mortals fathom the way of a god? "

11

My enemy heard of it and his countenance beamed: 12
My feet were stretched out as in irons: 11

The parallel of ideas between the above passages and those in Job are many and will be recalled without difficulty by those familiar with the Hebrew poem. We reproduce those which occur to our mind. The numeral at the close of each verse in the above citations is intended to correspond with the one at the beginning of the following passages taken from Job:

1. "My skin is black and falleth from me,

And my bones are burned with heat. Job 30. 30.

2. "He smote Job .... and he sat among the ashes. 2. 7f.

3. "Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. 17. 7.

4. "He poureth contempt upon princes,

And weakeneth the Strength of the mighty. 12. 21.
He hath stripped me of my glory,

And taken the crown from my head. 19. 9.

5. "They abhor me, they stand aloof from me:

And spare not to spit in my face. 30. 10.

He hath put my brethren far from me;

And my acquaintance are wholly estranged from me.
They that dwell in my house, and my maids count me for a

stranger. 19. 13-15.