palal

פָּלַל

HebrewH6419“pray, intercede, ...”

Appears 84 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 20:7Gen 20:17Gen 48:11Num 11:2Num 21:7 (2×)Deu 9:20Deu 9:261Sa 1:101Sa 1:121Sa 1:261Sa 1:271Sa 2:11Sa 2:25 (2×)1Sa 7:51Sa 8:61Sa 12:191Sa 12:232Sa 7:271Ki 8:281Ki 8:291Ki 8:301Ki 8:331Ki 8:351Ki 8:421Ki 8:441Ki 8:481Ki 8:541Ki 13:62Ki 4:332Ki 6:172Ki 6:182Ki 19:152Ki 19:202Ki 20:21Ch 17:252Ch 6:192Ch 6:202Ch 6:212Ch 6:242Ch 6:262Ch 6:322Ch 6:342Ch 6:382Ch 7:12Ch 7:142Ch 30:182Ch 32:202Ch 32:242Ch 33:13Ezr 10:1

Root family

palalפָּלַלto pray84H6419

Names & words formed with this

Word studyResearch-gradepah-LALverb

What palal means

to pray: to lay a matter before God and ask him to act on it, for oneself or for someone else

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary word for prayer in the Hebrew Bible, used about eighty times. It covers everything an Israelite might bring to God: Hannah's grief over childlessness, Solomon's long dedication of the temple, Hezekiah spreading a threatening letter out before the LORD, Daniel confessing on behalf of his people. Behind all of it lies a courtroom picture. The verb belongs to a family of words about arbitrating and deciding, so praying means submitting a case, one's own or someone else's, to the one judge who can settle it.

Within that range the word bends in several directions:

pleading for rescue or mercy on one's own account
standing in for other people, which Scripture treats as a duty rather than a favor
praying toward the temple, the pattern Solomon's dedication established
confessing sin, especially in the long prayers written during and after the exile
praying to a god who cannot answer, which the prophets use as a taunt

The strongest sign of how seriously the Bible takes praying for others is that it can be forbidden. God tells Jeremiah three times not to pray for Judah, which only makes sense if such prayer were expected to change something. Samuel puts the same point positively when he calls it a sin against God to stop praying for the people.

Other Hebrew words for approaching God stress different things. To entreat (עָתַר) leans on the answer being granted, and to plead for favor (חָנַן) leans on the mercy being asked for. This word leans on the hearing itself: a matter presented, and a decision sought.

Nuances

1ato pray for oneself or one's own concern: to bring a need, a request, or a complaint to God and ask him to act

1Sa 1:101Sa 1:121Sa 1:261Sa 1:271Sa 8:62Sa 7:272Ki 6:182Ki 19:152Ki 19:202Ki 20:21Ch 17:252Ch 32:20

1bto intercede: to pray on behalf of other people

Gen 20:7Gen 20:17Num 11:2Num 21:7 (2×)Deu 9:20Deu 9:261Sa 2:25 (2×)1Sa 7:51Sa 12:191Sa 12:231Ki 13:62Ki 4:33

1cto pray at or toward the temple: prayer offered before God's house, or aimed at it from far away

1Ki 8:281Ki 8:291Ki 8:301Ki 8:331Ki 8:351Ki 8:421Ki 8:441Ki 8:481Ki 8:542Ch 6:192Ch 6:202Ch 6:21

1dto pray in confession: to admit sin and ask for pardon

2Ch 7:142Ch 33:13Ezr 10:1Neh 1:4Neh 1:6Dan 9:4Dan 9:20

1eto pray to someone other than the LORD: to aim the same appeal at an idol or another power

Isa 16:12Isa 44:17Isa 45:14Isa 45:20

1fto pray as a song of praise or thanksgiving: a composed prayer spoken out as poetry

1Sa 2:1Jon 2:1

to render a judgment: to step between two sides and settle a case, or to size up how a matter stands

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Four verses use this verb in a way that has nothing to do with prayer. Here it belongs to the world of the courtroom: weighing a case, coming between two sides, and deciding how a matter stands. These uses sit in older or deliberately old sounding passages, and most scholars treat this, rather than prayer, as where the word began.

The clearest example is 1 Samuel 2:25, where both uses stand side by side: if one person wrongs another, God will settle it between them, but if the wrong is against God himself, who is left to plead the case? The same idea of stepping in appears when Phinehas acts to halt a plague. The verb also stretches to sizing up a prospect, as when Jacob says he never reckoned on seeing Joseph's face again.

These four verses matter out of proportion to their number, because they explain the shape of the common meaning. The other words built from the same root all name arbiters and their rulings, and the noun for a prayer comes from the same family. To pray, in this word's logic, is to bring a case before the highest judge and ask him to decide. That is why arbitrating and praying live in one word, while the ordinary word for judging (שָׁפַט) stays nearby without ever taking on the sense of prayer.

Nuances

2ato arbitrate: to come between two parties and settle the matter

1Sa 2:25 (2×)Psa 106:30

2bto reckon: to judge in advance how something will turn out

TranslatabilityDirect

Gen 48:11

2cto pass judgment for another: to hand down a verdict in someone else's favor

Ezk 16:52

What palal does not mean

Most English Bibles simply say "pray", which is right for the great majority of uses, though it hides two things:

The word carries a courtroom background, so praying means laying a case before God and asking him to rule on it, not merely talking to him.
One plain verb covers both praying for yourself and praying for other people, so English versions switch between "pray" and "make intercession" where the Hebrew never changes words.

A popular claim should also be set aside: that the word literally means "to judge yourself", making prayer a form of self-examination. The form of the verb used for praying works like the verb for pleading for someone's favor (חָנַן), which means making yourself the object of another's kindness, not being kind to yourself. So the sense is submitting yourself to God's assessment, not sitting in judgment on yourself. The self-examination idea grew up in later devotional writing and has no support in the way the Bible actually uses the word.

What scholars say about palal

All the standard lexica place this root in a judicial semantic field and derive the sense "pray" from it. BDB proposes a primary sense "intervene, interpose", following S. R. Driver's note on 1 Samuel 2:25, and derives both "arbitrate, judge" and "intercede, pray" from it. HALOT gives the Piel "to arbitrate, give judgment" (with the "expect" nuance at Genesis 48:11) and the Hitpael "to pray, intercede"; DCH, programmatically anti-etymological, lists the Piel as "mediate, arbitrate; think, consider; execute judgment" and offers no reconstruction at all. Speiser (JBL 82, 1963) argued instead for a cognitive and evaluative seed, "to assess, estimate", taking Genesis 48:11 as the key text and reading Exodus 21:22 as "by assessment", and anchored the reconstruction in Akkadian palalu; Greenberg adopted this line and read tepillah as "verdict" at Psalm 109:7, while Sarna and Milgrom follow Speiser at Genesis 48:11 and Exodus 21:22. Both routes converge on the same semantic field, and only Akkadian palalu is a secure cognate: Ugaritic supplies none (per DULAT), and Aramaic, Syriac and Ge'ez use the root tsly for prayer, which the Targumim substitute for Hebrew hitpallel throughout. Grammatically the Hitpael is now generally analyzed not as a strict reflexive ("judge oneself") but as an indirect or voluntary reflexive parallel to hithannen "seek favor for oneself", hence "seek assessment or mediation for oneself" (Speiser, JAOS 75, 1955; Lambdin; Ringgren in TDOT; Greenberg), which removes the philological basis for the popular devotional reading. Distributionally, the forensic Piel and the noun cluster (palil, pelilim, pelilah, pelili) cluster in older or archaizing material, while the Hitpael and the noun tepillah dominate the Deuteronomistic History and become near universal in the post-exilic penitential prayers of Ezra 9, Nehemiah 1 and 9, and Daniel 9 (Werline; Balentine; Miller); by that stratum the Piel and the forensic nouns have disappeared.

Where scholars disagree about palal

Which sense the root started from, and how the meaning "pray" grew out of the judicial senses. Every standard lexicon places the root in a judicial and decisional field; the disagreement is over the precise semantic seed.

contestedThe seed is cognitive and evaluative, "to assess, estimate, calculate": from assessing come formal legal assessment (Exodus 21:22 bi-pelilim) and then prayer, understood as placing one's case before God for assessment. Genesis 48:11 is the key witness, and Akkadian palalu "oversee, keep watch" the cognate.; E. A. Speiser, "The Stem PLL in Hebrew," Journal of Biblical Literature 82 (1963): 301-306; M. Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel (University of California Press, 1983), 21-22; N. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (JPS, 1989), on Genesis 48:11
contestedThe seed is "to intervene, interpose, mediate", from which both "arbitrate, judge" and "intercede, pray" derive. This handles 1 Samuel 2:25 (God arbitrating between two humans) and Psalm 106:30 (Phinehas interposing) most naturally.; BDB, s.v. פלל, 813; S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed. (Clarendon, 1913), 39; P. D. Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer (Fortress, 1994); H.-P. Stähli, "פלל pll hitp. beten," TLOT (ET Hendrickson, 1997)
minorityThe Hitpael is denominative from a root cognate with Arabic falla "to notch, blunt", so praying began as ritual self-laceration on the model of 1 Kings 18:28. Listed by every later lexicon only to be rejected: the Hebrew Bible never attests such a sense.; J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, 2nd ed. (Reimer, 1897), 126
minorityThe proto-Semitic seed is physical ("be scorched, cracked; break, defeat"), with the cognitive and legal senses developing metaphorically. A philological refinement rather than a rival exegesis: it converges with the judicial reconstruction on every derived sense.; A. Militarev and L. Kogan, Semitic Etymological Dictionary (Ugarit-Verlag, 2000- )

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

BDB, s.v. פלל, 813lexicon
HALOT 3:933, s.v. פללlexicon
DCH, ed. D. J. A. Clines, vol. 6 (Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), s.v. פללlexicon
Gesenius, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., ed. R. Meyer and H. Donner (Springer, 1987-2010), s.v. פללlexicon
H. Ringgren, "פלל pll," TDOT 11:567-577theological-dictionary
H.-P. Stähli, "פלל pll hitp. beten," TLOT (ET Hendrickson, 1997)theological-dictionary
P. A. Verhoef, "פלל," NIDOTTE 3:626-628theological-dictionary
E. A. Speiser, "The Stem PLL in Hebrew," Journal of Biblical Literature 82 (1963): 301-306article
E. A. Speiser, "The Durative Hithpa'el: A tan-Form," Journal of the American Oriental Society 75 (1955): 118-121article
D. R. Ap-Thomas, "Notes on Some Terms Relating to Prayer," Vetus Testamentum 6 (1956): 225-241article
M. Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel (University of California Press, 1983), 21-22monograph
S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed. (Clarendon, 1913), 39monograph
P. K. McCarter, I Samuel, Anchor Bible 8 (Doubleday, 1980), on 1 Samuel 2:25commentary
M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, Anchor Bible 22 (Doubleday, 1983), on Ezekiel 16:52commentary
P. D. Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer (Fortress, 1994)monograph
S. E. Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue (Fortress, 1993)monograph
Y. Muffs, "Who Will Stand in the Breach? A Study of Prophetic Intercession," in Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel (JTS, 1992), 9-48article
R. A. Werline, Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism (Scholars Press, 1998)monograph
J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, 2nd ed. (Reimer, 1897), 126monograph

palal

What palal means

to pray: to lay a matter before God and ask him to act on it, for oneself or for someone else

Nuances

to render a judgment: to step between two sides and settle a case, or to size up how a matter stands

Nuances

What scholars say about palal

Where scholars disagree about palal

Sources

All attested forms of פָּלַל

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3ms

hithpael infinitive-construct construct

hithpael consecutive-perfect 3cp

hithpael imperative 2ms

hithpael participle m s absolute

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 1cs

hithpael imperfect 3ms

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 3ms

hithpael imperfect 3mp

hithpael jussive 2ms

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3fs

hithpael perfect 2ms

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 1cs

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 3mp

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 1cp

hithpael consecutive-perfect 2mp

hithpael consecutive-perfect 3ms

hithpael imperative 2mp

hithpael imperfect 1cs

hithpael participle m p absolute

hithpael perfect 1cs

hithpael perfect 3ms

piel consecutive-imperfect 3ms

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

piel perfect 1cs

piel perfect 2fs

What palal means

to pray: to lay a matter before God and ask him to act on it, for oneself or for someone else

Nuances

to render a judgment: to step between two sides and settle a case, or to size up how a matter stands

Nuances

Related words

The English words used to translate palal

How palal differs from similar Hebrew words

palal in the other biblical languages

What scholars say about palal

Where scholars disagree about palal

Sources

All attested forms of פָּלַל

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3ms

hithpael infinitive-construct construct

hithpael consecutive-perfect 3cp

hithpael imperative 2ms

hithpael participle m s absolute

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 1cs

hithpael imperfect 3ms

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 3ms

hithpael imperfect 3mp

hithpael jussive 2ms

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3fs

hithpael perfect 2ms

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 1cs

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 3mp

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 1cp

hithpael consecutive-perfect 2mp

hithpael consecutive-perfect 3ms

hithpael imperative 2mp

hithpael imperfect 1cs

hithpael participle m p absolute

hithpael perfect 1cs

hithpael perfect 3ms

piel consecutive-imperfect 3ms

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

piel perfect 1cs

piel perfect 2fs