Ascending the Mountain of the Lord

Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament

David Rolph Seely, Jeffrey R. Chadwick, and Matthew J. Grey, Editors

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Gestures of Praise: Lifting and Spreading the Hands in Biblical Prayer

David M. Calabro

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David M. Calabro, “Gestures of Praise: Lifting and Spreading the Hands in Biblical Prayer,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament (2013 Sperry Symposium), ed. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 105–21.

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David Calabro is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

Prayer, including praise as well as supplication, tends to be understood as the offering up of words that are enunciated and heard.[1] However, prayer also has an important visual component, especially in the context of the temple, where ritual actions are a focus.[2] The quintessential type of gesture associated with prayer in the ancient world was the lifting of the hands, a visual sign that accompanied verbal expressions of praise and entreaty.[3]

The ancient Israelite gesture of raising both hands in praise or supplication is mentioned in twenty-four scriptural passages, of which twenty-two are from the Old Testament, one is from the New Testament, and one is from the Book of Mormon.[4] Similar references are also found in a small group of inscriptions from cultures closely related to ancient Israel (two Ugaritic and two Aramaic).[5] In addition, art from the ancient Levant bears witness to this gesture (see figs. 1–4 and discussion below). However, scholars who have studied the gesture based on the biblical text have tended either to rely on comparisons with the more distant cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt or to ignore the evidence from art, leading to a distorted picture of what the gesture looked like. This is important because, in some cases, the precise meaning of the gesture depends on its apperance. For example, Mayer Gruber, based on analysis of biblical and Mesopotamian textual sources and perhaps influenced by Mesopotamian art, suggests that the gesture symbolizes a request for one’s empty hands to be filled, which assumes that the hands are raised with the palms upward.[6] At the same time, those who have commented on this gesture as it appears in Levantine art have generally given only cursory attention to the meaning of the gesture, as if the meaning is obvious and not worthy of in-depth study. An example of this kind of cursory interpretation is found in James Pritchard’s description of a relief on a sarcophagus from ancient Byblos: “The last four figures merely salute the king with upraised and out-turned hands.”[7]

My purpose in this study is to present the evidence for this gesture in the literature and art of the biblical world, combining the textual and artistic sources to establish the form and then the meaning of this gesture. I will begin by reviewing the examples of this gesture: first those from the biblical passages, then those from the inscriptions, and finally those from the artistic sources. Along the way, I will explain what these examples tell us about the gesture’s form. I will then discuss the gesture’s meaning, including how raising the hands in prayer may relate to other ritual actions that were performed in the same context.

Biblical Instances of Raising Both Hands in Prayer

Six Hebrew idioms are used in the Old Testament to describe the gesture of raising both hands in prayer. One of these is nāśāʾ yādayim, “lift up the hands,” which is used twice in the Psalms:

Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. (Psalm 28:2; emphasis added in scriptures quoted)[8]

Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. (Psalm 134:2)

An additional example of this idiom is found in the book of Habakkuk:

The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high. (Habakkuk 3:10)

The Hebrew text of the passage including Habbakuk 3:10 contains many problems, and scholars differ as to whether it was the deep or the sun (mentioned in the following verse) that was originally described as lifting up its hands, or whether an entirely different idiom was originally used.[9] In any case, the text as it now stands seems to describe the personified deep raising its “hands” (perhaps referring to waves) in praising God.

The second idiom used for this gesture is nāśāʾ kappayim. This idiom is also translated as “lift up the hands” in most English translations.[10]

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. (Psalm 141:2)

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. (Lamentations 3:41)[11]

A third idiom, pāraś kappayim, means “spread or stretch out the hands.” This is the most common Hebrew idiom used for the raising of both hands in worship, and it is found in many biblical books, including the historical books:

And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord; and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know how that the earth is the Lord’s. . . . And Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad his hands unto the Lord: and the thunders and hail ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth. (Exodus 9:29, 33)

Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street. (Lamentations 2:19)

And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven: . . . And it was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication unto the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. (1 Kings 8:22, 54)

What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house: then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest. (1 Kings 8:38–39)[12]

The fourth idiom is pēraś (bə)yādayim “spread or stretch forth the hands.” This idiom occurs once in Psalms and once in Lamentations:

I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. (Psalm 143:6)

Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them. (Lamentations 1:17)

The idiom pēraś (bə)yādayim is also used in Isaiah 25 to describe quite a different action, namely the strokes of a swimmer. However, in using this figure of a swimmer, the prop

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