Psalm 5:2 Listen to the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for to you will I pray. No priest stands between the worshipper and his Lord. Every man must state his own case. We pray for one another, but not instead of one another. What can be more beautiful than the picture which is thus represented? God is put in His right place as the throned Father, listening to each of His subjects as the subject may feel impelled to address Him. Every word is charged with tremulous life. No man can pray for another in the same exquisite and vital sense as a man can pray for himself; there are always circumstances in the case of the petitioner, which the petitioner alone knows, and even though he cannot throw such circumstances into literal expression he can suggest them all by the very tones of his voice. We mistake the nature of prayer if we think it can be limited to words. Even when we use the words of another in our devotional exercises, we throw into their expression accents which are personal and incommunicable. It is in such tones and accents that the true quality of prayer is found. If prayer consisted only in the utterance of certain words, then the wicked might pray, and pray with great elocutionary effect; but the prayer is hardly in the words at all, it is a subtle fragrance of the soul, an inexpressible something which we understand most nearly by the name of agony. This being the nature of prayer, it follows that whatever priestly mediation there may be in the universe — and that there is such mediation no student of the Bible can deny — the individual himself must stand in a direct relation to God, receiving help from the priest, but not in any degree to obliterate his personality, or reduce his spiritual enjoyment. (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.WEB: Listen to the voice of my cry, my King and my God; for to you do I pray. |
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