Worship and Prayer
Study about worship, prayer, priesthood, and purpose? Image of God?
26 Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground, and
The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and
Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
dress (CULTIVATE) is ʿāḇaḏ, the normal Hebrew verb meaning “to serve.” So again the note is sounded that man is placed in the garden as servant. He is there not to be served but to serve.
The word translated “work” (ʿābad) is the common one for tilling the soil (e.g., 3:23; 4:2, 12) or for other labor (e.g.,
The verb and its noun derivative “service” (ʿăbōdâ) frequently describe Levitical duties in tabernacle and temple worship
Thus we read in
The second verb—keep or “tend” (Heb. šāmar)—carries a slightly different nuance. The basic meaning of this root is “to exercise great care over,” to the point, if necessary, of guarding
1. Verb. In the qal šmr has the basic meaning “watch, guard, observe, fulfill, keep, keep watch, spy out
The noun ʾašmûrâ/ʾašmōreṯ means “night watch”.
the text in Lamentations involves a nighttime prayer at the beginning of the watches. In a similar vein the psalmist, seeking communion with God, quiet, and contemplation (
For priestly duties it describes the faithful carrying out of God’s instructions (e.g.,
The garden is something to be protected more than it is something to be possessed
Then the LORD God commanded the man.
This is the first time in the Bible that the verb tsavah (צָוָה, “to command”) appears. Whatever the man had to do in the garden, the main focus of the narrative is on keeping God’s commandments. God created humans with the capacity to obey him and then tested them with commands
The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17
For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked;
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—23
So it came about in the course of time
Am I my brother’s keeper?”
I will be hidden from Your face
Then Cain left the presence of the LORD
Then people began to call upon the name of the LORD.
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD
21
The priestly legislation attaches an expiatory function to it (
The “burnt offering” was a blood offering given in the Mosaic community as a voluntary offering for sin (
And the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.”
And Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
aPossessor of heaven and earth;
20 And blessed be God Most High,
Who has handed over your enemies to you.”
And he gave him a tenth of everything
Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees me”; for she said, “Have I even seen Him here and lived after He saw me?”
The root qrʾ occurs in all Semitic languages but Ethiopic; it encompasses a range of meanings from “cry, call, summon, invite, pray, read, recite” to “sing” or (Middle Hebrew) “crow.” The basic meaning could be identified with loud speech.
This is the first use of prophet in the Bible. The role of the prophet here is that of intercessor: he will pray for you
In both Hebrew and these other languages, it denotes a mediator who has been called by God to speak on God’s behalf. The Western European languages use the word “prophet,” borrowed from Greek, for such a person
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.
Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go over there;
The remembered events of the Exodus, the Passover, the crucifixion, and the Resurrection evoke a response from God’s people. The response is worship. Hence, worship originates with God in its theological roots as opposed to anthropological initiation from the human side
which means “worthship” or worthiness. This connotes actions motivated by an attitude that reveres, honors, or describes the worth of another person or object
Hebrew While no one Hebrew term is an equivalent for worship, many Hebraic ideas define the activity of worship in the OT. The verb ʿaḇaḏ means “serve”; the corresponding noun means “service, adoration.” Hištaḥawâ is another verb in the liturgical vocabulary that means “prostrate oneself” (cf. TDOT IV, 248–256). The Hebrew terms that are used synonymously for the word worship are verbs that indicate some type of activity.
Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, 16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand, which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
