Prayer (worship); by implication, an oratory (chapel)
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προσευχή (proseuchē) is the New Testament noun for prayer and, in a small number of settings, a recognized place of prayer. It names prayer offered to God as worshipful dependence, including petition, thanksgiving, intercession, watchfulness, and sustained communion.
Reader summary
Full entry for προσευχή (G4335) · Open the biblical lexicon
προσευχή (proseuchē) is the New Testament noun for prayer and, in a small number of settings, a recognized place of prayer. It names prayer offered to God as worshipful dependence, including petition, thanksgiving, intercession, watchfulness, and sustained communion.
The BSB source-word alignment has 36 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include prayers (12), prayer (11), of prayer (4), in prayer (2), praying (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 21:13. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (9), Luke (3), Revelation (3), Romans (3).
προσευχή (proseuchē) is the New Testament noun for prayer and, in a small number of settings, a recognized place of prayer. It names prayer offered to God as worshipful dependence, including petition, thanksgiving, intercession, watchfulness, and sustained communion. Jesus defends the temple’s calling as a house of prayer and Himself spends the night in prayer before appointing the Twelve.
The apostles devote themselves to prayer alongside the ministry of the word. In Philippi the noun identifies a riverside gathering place where worshipers meet, showing that context can shift the reference from the act to its location. Paul joins prayer and petition with thanksgiving as believers bring anxieties before God. The noun does not make every request faithful, guarantee the requested outcome, or turn prayer into a technique for controlling God.
Scripture presents prayer as creaturely and covenantal approach: God hears according to His will, forms His people through communion with Him, and gathers the church to depend on Him together.
προσευχή names prayer offered to God and can also denote a customary place of prayer. Its New Testament uses connect worship, Jesus’ own dependence, apostolic priorities, gathered community, and thankful petition.
And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Jesus joins Isaiah’s house-of-prayer promise to Jeremiah’s den-of-robbers rebuke. Prayer here belongs to holy worship and cannot be separated from justice, repentance, and the proper use of God’s house.
In those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God.
Luke places Jesus’ extended prayer immediately before He calls and names the Twelve. The Son’s communion with the Father frames a decisive step in His mission without reducing prayer to a device for obtaining information.
And will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
The apostles protect sustained attention to prayer and the word while the congregation appoints servants for a neglected distribution. Prayer is not an escape from ordered care; it belongs beside a wise division of ministry.
On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river, where it was customary to find a place of prayer. After sitting down, we spoke to the women who had gathered there.
The noun refers to a recognized prayer place, and the narrative locates gospel witness among gathered women by the river. The lexical extension is concrete and should not be forced into every occurrence.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Prayer is paired with specific petition and thanksgiving as requests are brought to God. The verse calls anxious believers toward dependent communion, not toward pretending that burdens are unreal or that one prayer mechanically removes every symptom.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Prayer directed to God as an act of worship, distinct from petition or supplication.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 37 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
prayer, a place for prayer
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 8 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 36 lexical occurrence verses.
προσευχή is built from this root:
Power flows through dependence.Mark 9:14–29
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Prayer is the posture of creatures and children who approach God because He is God and because He has opened access to Himself. Jesus’ cleansing of the temple refuses to separate prayer from holy worship and covenant faithfulness. His own night of prayer shows that communion with the Father is not a decorative addition to ministry. In Acts, prayer stands beside the word and wise service; the church neither prays instead of addressing neglected widows nor organizes as though divine help were unnecessary.
Philippians brings the practice into anxious experience. Believers name their requests, add thanksgiving, and present them to God. The promise that follows is God’s guarding peace, not a formula by which every circumstance is immediately rearranged. Prayer therefore includes asking, but it is larger than demanding outcomes. It worships, remembers, confesses dependence, intercedes, waits, gives thanks, and keeps the church near the God whose will is wise.
Teaching should invite specific, reverent, persistent prayer while refusing shame toward sufferers, spectacle before others, or claims that unanswered requests prove defective faith.
Phil.4.6
προσευχή is a feminine noun related to προσεύχομαι. Most occurrences refer to prayer itself, but Acts 16 uses it for a customary place of prayer. Nearby nouns can emphasize a request, supplication, intercession, thanksgiving, or vow; their presence can clarify the texture of a passage without creating rigid technical categories.
Hannah pours out her soul before the Lord, the Psalms teach petition, praise, confession, and waiting, and Solomon asks God to hear prayer directed toward the temple. Isaiah envisions God’s house as a house of prayer for all nations, while Jeremiah condemns worship used to shelter injustice. Jesus brings both prophetic lines into His temple action, and the New Testament church prays through Christ with access to the Father in the Spirit.