by Ptr. Art Calaguas
Shalom.
As I wrote last week, the ancient Jewish תפילת העמידה Amidah Prayer or the שמנה עשרה Shemoneh Esreh, originally 18 benedictions or prayers but now 19 in number; were subdivided into 3 parts. There is a praise/worship section, a petition section and a thanksgiving section. Furthermore, the Amidah/Shemoneh Esreh/18 Benedictions are presently liturgically divided this way: 3 blessings/prayers for praise/worship, 13 prayers for petitions and 3 blessings for gratitude/thanksgiving to the LORD God. Today also, there are two (2) basic versions of the Amidah. For weekdays, devout Jews were expected to pray all the benedictions. For Sabbath and holiday versions, the first 3 prayers for praise/worship and the last 3 were prayed but the middle 13 were reduced to just 1 benediction appropriate for the occasion; so just 7 benedictions. Today, the Amidah (“Standing Prayer”) is the main section of all Jewish siddurim (prayer books). All the blessings have a common phrase; בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהוָה (“Baruch atah Adonai”) meaning “Blessed are you, O LORD” and “Adonai” is how Jews speak the Tetragrammaton sacred name (יְהוָה).
Here are the 3 benedictions/prayers/blessings for praise/worship (translations from the Hebrew by David Bivin, downloaded from https://engediresourcecenter.com/2019/09/24/the-amidah-prayer-a-new-translation/); the list represent only the salient point of the prayer without the accompanying details:
1. Blessed are you, O LORD, the shield of Abraham.
2. Blessed are you, O LORD, who revives the dead.
3. Blessed are you, O LORD, the holy God.
The following are the 13 benedictions/prayers/blessings for petition (translations from the same source above):
4. Blessed are you, O LORD, the gracious giver of knowledge.
5. Blessed are you, O LORD, who delights in repentance.
6. Blessed are you, O LORD, who is merciful and always ready to forgive.
7. Blessed are you, O LORD, the redeemer of Israel.
8. Blessed are you, O LORD, the healer of the sick of his people Israel.
9. Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses the years.
10. Blessed are you, O LORD, who gathers the dispersed of his people Israel.
11. Blessed are you, O LORD, the King who loves righteousness and justice.
12. Blessed are you, O LORD, who smashes enemies and humbles the arrogant.
13. Blessed are you, O LORD, the support and stay of the righteous.
14. Blessed are you, O LORD, who rebuilds Jerusalem.
15. Blessed are you, O LORD, who causes salvation to flourish.
16. Blessed are you, O LORD, who hears prayer.
Note that Prayer #12 above was the last added benediction (apparently included in the 2nd century AD).
Lastly, here are the 3 benedictions/prayers/blessings for thanksgiving (translations from the same source above):
17. Blessed are you, O LORD, who restores his divine presence to Zion.
18. Blessed are you, O LORD, whose Name is the Beneficent One, and to whom it is fitting to give thanks.
19. Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses his people Israel with peace.
Given the above, we can now see the underlying structure of our Lord’s teaching about the elements of prayer. The liturgy for the Amidah Prayer for the praise/worship section extols the holiness of God (translations from the same source above):
We will sanctify your name in this world just as it is sanctified in the highest heavens, as it is written by your prophet: “And they call out to one another and say:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.'” [Isa. 6:3]
The same ideas are brought out in Matthew 6:9-10. It is a condensed parallel of the 3-prayer praise/worship section in the Amidah Prayer:
9…Our Father the One in the heavens; may your name be sanctified,
10May your kingdom come; may your will happen, as in heaven also on earth;
On the other hand, Matthew 6:11-13 is a shortened version of the 13-prayer Amidah section on petitions:
11Our daily bread, may you give us today;
12And may you forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
13And bring us not into trials, but deliver us from the evil one.
It seems the Lord Jesus emphasizes 3 petitions in his teaching: provision, forgiveness and deliverance from trials and against the evil one. Matthew 6:11 parallels the Amidah prayer #9. Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses the years (for deliverance from want) as benediction #9 actually goes this way (translation from the same source above):
Bless this year for us, O LORD our God, together with all the varieties of its produce, for our welfare.
Bestow a blessing upon the face of the earth. O satisfy us with your goodness, and bless our year like the best of years.
Blessed are you, O LORD, who blesses the years.
Matthew 6:12 resonates with Amidah blessings #5 (repentance) and #6 (forgiveness). Furthermore, if we look at Matthew 6:14 and 6:15, the Lord emphasizes forgiveness as the prerequisite key to God’s forgiveness. These verses certainly also echo the #5 and #6 Amidah benedictions.
We can see that Matthew 6:9-13 seems not to have an explicit thanksgiving section. So what happened to the thanksgiving part? We will explore this later in the following parts of this study.
As I mentioned last week, historically we know a Rabbi Eleazer, a younger contemporary of Jesus, who also summarized the Amidah in his own way. Jewish Rabbis were expected to give condensed prayers, emphasizing this point or that, depending on the occasion and the teaching objective. Rabbi Eleazer taught the following prayer from the Amidah (translation from the same source above) which resonates with and parallels portions of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-10):
May your will be done in heaven above,
Grant peace of mind to those who fear you (on earth) below,
And do what seems best to you.
Blessed are you, O LORD, who answers prayers.
It seems that Rabbi Eleazer also similarly did not explicitly include a thanksgiving section. During those times, the 3-part structure of the Amidah Prayer was not strictly, or at least, explicitly followed; or observed differently in the different Jewish synagogues across the known world at that time. Note that the Amidah Prayer was codified only after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple in 70 AD.
We will continue next week and study more about thanksgiving blessings, especially those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as in the Gospels.
God bless us all.