Prayer Lesson 162: “Give thanks to G-d, call upon his name, make known His name among the nations”

Right after baruch sheamar, when we are called upon to offer praise to G-d, we recite a long passage from the biblical book 1 Chronicles 16:8-36. This may seem a little odd, because we would expect a passage of praise, i.e., a Psalm. But instead, we read about an episode in the life of King David. More specifically, the prayer that was recited when David brought the ark to Jerusalem.

There are several characteristics of this passage that are worth noting, and which explain why it fits in so well here.

First, the fact that it harkens back to the time of David and the time of the Ark in Jerusalem is meant to be a foreshadowing of our people’s future—a time when the messiah, son of David, will come to Jerusalem, and the Temple, with the holy ark, will be rebuilt. So even though our emphasis is on prayer and contemplation, the link to the past and the promised future involving the Temple is not severed. It is as if to say, “We don’t pray instead of the Temple service. We pray for the Temple service.”

Second, the opening lines of this passage mention no less than eleven different ways to offer praise to G-d (Give thanks, call, announce, sing, play, discuss, revel, be glad, search, remember). Or perhaps, since the number ten is so common, the text means to say: Give thanks [and this is how]: call, announce, etc. This small catalogue of “praise styles” is a very useful guide to help us bring life to our prayers. Instead of just coming into the sanctuary and mumbling a lot of words, we are being offered a “toolbox” to get in touch with where we are in life, and how we should express ourselves at different times. Do we feel like singing? Are we driven by memories? Do we have an urge to “shout it from the rooftops?” etc.

Third, this biblical prayer actually cites biblical Psalms. The Bible is, so to speak, quoting itself. Why does this matter? Because we learn from this that what we are doing in our prayers—taking passages from the psalms and using them to give shape to our prayers—is exactly what our ancestors did. We are therefore linked to our past, not only by reading texts written by our ancestors, but by using those same texts for the same liturgical purposes. Keeping it simple, we pray like they prayed. Or more deeply, we are praying with them.