Petitionary Prayer

The rhetoric of Jewish petitionary prayer during the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman, and Byzantine periods follows closely the patterns and discursive strategies deployed in biblical prayers. First, the relevant divine attributes (power, wisdom, mercy, covenantal loyalty, and faithfulness) are invoked, together with a brief history of the relationship between God and the petitioner that justifies the latter’s request. The petitioner may also describe the danger and urgency of his or her current situation and appeal to God’s past promises of protection. All of this is meant to motivate divine intervention on the petitioner’s behalf. These prayer strategies are rooted in the means of persuasion used in human social discourse in a hierarchical context when a less powerful person (subject, child, wife) appeals to a more powerful person (ruler, parent, husband) for assistance or a favor.