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. Standardized prayer such as is done today is non-existent. However, beginning in Deuteronomy, the Bible lays the groundwork for organized prayer including basic liturgical guidelines, and by the Bible's later books, prayer has evolved to a more standardized form, although still radically different from the form practiced by modern Jews.

Individual prayer is described by the Tanakh two ways. The first of these is when prayer is described as occurring, and a result is achieved, but no further information regarding a person's prayer is given. In these instances, such as with Isaac,^[1] Moses,^[2] Samuel,^[3] and Job,^[4] the act of praying is a method of changing a situation for the better. The second way in which prayer is depicted is through fully fleshed out episodes of prayer, where a person's prayer is related in full. Many famous biblical personalities have such a prayer, including every major character from Hannah to Hezekiah.^[5]