I’m collecting a list of prayers from scripture as I read. I’d like to be as exhaustive as possible. As usual, I’m keeping this not to recommend it as useful, but only for my own use.
Gen. 4:13-14 - Cain’s personal plea for mercy - Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” (God grants a measure of mercy.)
Gen. 4:26 - Salvation - Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.
Gen. 8:20 - Noah’s pleasing sacrifice of worship after the flood - Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (God is pleased with the sacrifice.)
Gen. 9:25-27 - Noah curses Ham and, while blessing God, prays blessing upon Shem and Japheth - So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant. “May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.”
Gen. 12:7 - Abram builds an altar at Shechem - The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
Gen. 12:8 - Abram builds an altar at Bethel - Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
Gen. 13:4 - Abram worships at the Bethel altar - to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.
Gen. 13:18 - Abram builds an altar at Hebron - Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.
Gen. 15 - God’s covenant with Abram (Abram asks how God will give him an heir, believes, and makes a covenant sacrifice).
Gen. 16:13 - Hagar praises God - Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?”
Gen. 17:17 - Abraham questions how God will provide a child - Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
Gen. 18 - Abraham communes with three men; Abraham intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah before the Lord.
Gen. 20:7,17-18 - Abraham prays for healing for Abimelech - ”Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” . . . . Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maids, so that they bore children. For the Lord had closed fast all the wombs of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
Gen. 21:16-17 - Hagar prays for God’s mercy - Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “Do not let me see the boy die.” And she sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice and wept. God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.
Gen. 21:33 - Abraham calls on the name of the Lord at Beersheba - Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.
Gen. 24:12-14,26-27 - Abraham’s servant prays for success and a sign in finding a wife for Isaac - He said, “O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham. “Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’--may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.” . . . . Then the man bowed low and worshiped the Lord. He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”
Gen. 24:60 - Rebekah’s family blesses her - They blessed Rebekah and said to her, “May you, our sister, Become thousands of ten thousands, And may your descendants possess The gate of those who hate them.”
Gen. 25:21 - Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Gen. 25:22-23 - But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.”
Gen. 26:25 - Isaac seeks God at Beersheba - So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants dug a well.
Gen. 27:27-29,39-40 - Isaac blesses Jacob, then Esau - So he came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, “See, the smell of my son Is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed; Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, And of the fatness of the earth, And an abundance of grain and new wine; May peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you; Be master of your brothers, And may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, And blessed be those who bless you.” . . . . Then Isaac his father answered and said to him, “Behold, away from the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling, And away from the dew of heaven from above. “By your sword you shall live, And your brother you shall serve; But it shall come about when you become restless, That you will break his yoke from your neck.”
Gen. 28:3-4 - Abraham blesses Isaac - ”May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.”
Gen. 28:20-22 - Isaac vows after his dream - Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God. This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”
Gen. 29:35 - Leah praises God - And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.
Gen. 31:49,53-54 - Jacob and Laban invoke God as witness - . . . and Mizpah, for he said, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other. . . . “The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain.
Gen. 32:9-12 - Jacob prays for favor when meeting Esau.
Gen. 32:26,29 - Jacob wrestles, demands a blessing, and asks God’s name.
Gen. 35:6-15 - God blessed Jacob at Bethel; Jacob builds an altar.
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