What the Hebrew Verb “To Pray” Has to Say about Prayer

During the past couple of weeks I’ve been listening to tame Israeli pop music and Hebrew Bible readings during my work commute. I enjoy doing this for a number of reasons, one being that it’s a minimal-effort way to pick up new words and slang phrases outside of book study. I also like watching YouTube instructional videos in my spare time since this is another “path of least resistance” avenue for language learning.

Then there’s the heavy lifting of learning verb forms. Verb study is by far my least favorite part of learning a foreign language. But the hard truth is that there’s no way around it. Listening to Israeli ballads and Bible readings while traveling is great for vocabulary recognition, but it’s a poor substitute for studying verb forms. Trying to build your conversational skills without studying verb conjugations is like training to play an instrument without practicing scales. The end product will be choppy and inconsistent.

One silver lining to learning Hebrew verb structures is that they sometimes contain spiritual lessons. For me, this is the most satisfying trade-off for the long hours of memorization. One such verb that gives instructive lessons through its form is “to pray”. The structure itself teaches us volumes about the nature of prayer when it’s practiced at its highest, most impactful level.

To avoid taking this subject into the bottomless abyss of boring linguistic explanations, I’ll summarize the Hebrew verb system as briefly as possible. Unfortunately some explanation is necessary since none of the spiritual implications of “to pray” will make sense without this background.

So, just to summarize, Hebrew verbs are built around small consonant “roots”, which usually consist of three or four letters. For example, the infinitive “to speak” לְדַבֵּר (leh-dah-BEHR) is built around the three-consonant stem דבר (d-b-r).

There are seven potential stems that can be added to these simple consonant building blocks. The individual stem that's used determines whether the altered root is passive or active, plus it provides additional information that affects the modified verb’s meaning. I promise that these structures (in Hebrew they are called binyaneem, or “buildings”) are a lot simpler to understand than I’m making them out to be. The YouTube link I’ve inserted below explains this system much better than I ever could.

Explanation of Hebrew verb stems

Finally, three of the seven stems are active-voice types that have complementary forms on the passive side of the spectrum. The following chart gives a visual representation of these pairings:

These three complementary pairs build in intensity and complexity as they converge towards the middle of the pictured menorah, where we find the seventh binyan (“building”) at the center. This central verb construction that's labeled reflexive/cooperative in the above graphic is named hitpa’el. The “outside” or simplest stem pair (pa’al and nif’al) represent actions that generally don’t require more than one person to do them and are low on the intensity scale. In contrast, hitpa’el verbs usually (1) involve intensive effort, (2) are done with at least one other person or agent, and (3) involve the subject being impacted or changed directly by his or her own actions. So hitpa’el  verbs often describe actions that result in a significant change to a person’s condition or internal nature.

Let’s look at one example of a Hebrew hitpa’el form that meets all three criteria listed above. The three root letters that make up the verb stem for “to love” are אהב, or aleph-het-vet (a-h-v). At the lowest level active-voice binyan, the pa’al structure, we have the verb לֶאֱהוֹב (leh-eh-HOV), which means “to like” or “to love” someone or something. Its hitpa’el form is לְהִתְאַהֵב (leh-heet-ah-HEHV), which signifies “to fall in love”. This represents the pinnacle of the “to love” root since “to fall in love” (1) involves another person (as opposed to merely liking/loving an object), (2) is highly intensive, and (3) creates dramatic changes in those who experience this type of love. 

The Hebrew verb “to pray”, לְהִתְפַּלֵל (leh-HEET-pah-LEHL), is also a hitpa’el stem verb, which makes perfect sense to me. It fits all the basic requirements of this type of verb form. Prayer is the highest realization of communication since it’s done with God, it’s a very active (as opposed to passive) endeavor, and we are changed when we pray the way that Savior has invited us to. The scriptural verse below describes the hitpa’el characteristics of true prayer.

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart (high intensity), that ye may be filled with this love (prayer is interactive), which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure (the result is that we are changed).” 

- Moroni 7:48 (parenthetical commentary added)

I wish I could say that all my daily prayers are of the hitpa’el kind, but they often aren't. My prayers are regularly of the pa’al type: a low-intensity, one-sided dialogue that doesn't result in a deeper connection with Father or deeper conversion. I think this kind of non- hitpa’el prayer that I default to is one facet of what the Savior calls “vain repetitions”. It's not the repetitious part that I worry about since I don't necessarily repeat the same wording from one prayer to the next. Instead, I'm guilty of the vanity part, in one sense of the definition. In modern English vain most often means "conceited or self-obsessed", but another common definition is  "futile, to no purpose, pointless". Centuries ago, engaging in vain repetitious prayer on street corners might have stemmed from being over-concerned with being heard by men, but the modern pitfall might be (in my case, at least) more tied to being under-concerned with being heard by God. 

What I find encouraging, though, is that Heavenly Father is always ready to receive each of us in meaningful prayer at any time when we’re prepared and committed to engaging Him in its highest hitpa’el form.