Intercession , supplication ; by implication, a hymn
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The Hebrew noun tĕpillāh is the Old Testament's standard word for prayer — structured, directed speech addressed to God. Derived from the verb pālal (to intercede, to pray, to judge), it appears in the titles of several Psalms (Ps.
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Full entry for תְּפִלָּה (H8605) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun tĕpillāh is the Old Testament's standard word for prayer — structured, directed speech addressed to God. Derived from the verb pālal (to intercede, to pray, to judge), it appears in the titles of several Psalms (Ps.
The BSB source-word alignment has 77 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include my prayer (13), a prayer (7), the prayer (7), prayer (5), their prayer (5).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at 2 Samuel 7:27. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (32), 2 Chronicles (12), 1 Kings (8), Isaiah (5).
The Hebrew noun tĕpillāh is the Old Testament's standard word for prayer — structured, directed speech addressed to God. Derived from the verb pālal (to intercede, to pray, to judge), it appears in the titles of several Psalms (Ps. 17, 86, 90, 102, 142 are each titled 'a prayer of'), in Solomon's great dedicatory prayer at the temple (1 Kings 8), in Daniel's intercession for Jerusalem (Dan.
9), And throughout the Psalter as the basic vocabulary of Israel's devotional life. What tĕpillāh implies is not a technique or a formula but a relationship: the creature addressing the Creator, the covenant member addressing their covenant Lord, the dependent addressing the only One who can meet their need. Psalm 65:2 names the theological ground of all tĕpillāh: 'You who hear prayer, all men will come to you.'
The fact that God hears is the only sufficient basis for the act of prayer itself. Without a hearing God, prayer collapses into either self-therapy or empty ritual. The concentration of tĕpillāh in the Psalms places prayer at the center of Israel's life with God — not as a supplementary exercise but as the primary speech of the creature before the Creator. Psalm 141:2 identifies prayer with sacrifice: 'Let my prayer be set before you like incense; the lifting up of my hands like the evening sacrifice' — by the time of the Second Temple, tĕpillāh was becoming the primary vehicle of Israel's approach to God, pointing forward to the NT's 'sacrifice of praise' through Christ.
Tĕpillāh is locally indexed at about 77 H8605 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible. Its concentration in the Psalms (32 occurrences) makes it the defining vocabulary of the Psalter's dominant genre. It appears in narrative contexts (Hannah's prayer, Solomon's prayer, Daniel's prayer, Hezekiah's prayer) as the word for the structured verbal address to God that turns the narrative pivot. The word spans personal petition (Ps. 102), communal intercession (1 Kgs. 8), and contemplative devotion (Ps. 141).
O You who listen to prayer, all people will come to You.
The most comprehensive tĕpillāh statement in the Psalter: God's hearing is the reason prayer is possible at all, and that hearing is universal in scope — 'all men.' This verse grounds the entire practice of prayer in the character of God as one who listens, not in the worthiness or eloquence of the one who prays. It is the theological foundation on which all the other tĕpillāh texts stand.
May my prayer be set before You like incense; my uplifted hands, like the evening offering.
David's identification of prayer with the morning and evening sacrifices of the temple shows that tĕpillāh had already begun to occupy the same theological space as the sacrificial system. The direction this points — prayer as the spiritual equivalent of sacrifice — was developed further in Second Temple Judaism and is fully expressed in the NT's 'sacrifice of praise' (Heb. 13:15) and the incense-prayers of Revelation (8:3-4).
Then may whatever prayer or petition Your people Israel make—each knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple—
Solomon's temple dedication prayer uses tĕpillāh as the governing category for all approach to God through the temple — whether individual or communal, in times of drought, plague, defeat, or exile. The phrase 'know the plague of his own heart' is one of the OT's most psychologically honest descriptions of the inner awareness that drives genuine prayer: not performance, but honest recognition of need.
So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
Daniel's intercession for Jerusalem is one of the greatest examples of tĕpillāh in the narrative literature. It is set 'by prayer and petitions' with accompanying disciplines of fasting and mourning, demonstrating that biblical tĕpillāh is not an isolated verbal act but a whole-body posture of dependence. Daniel's prayer (9:4-19) is also a masterclass in intercessory structure: praise, confession of sin, appeal to God's character, and specific petition.
I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”
Isaiah 56:7 is the verse Jesus quotes when he cleanses the temple (Matt. 21:13; Mark 11:17). The eschatological horizon is radical: God's house is to be a tĕpillāh-house for all nations, not for Israel alone. The temple's purpose, in Isaiah's vision, is to be the place where people of every background come to address the God who hears. This verse connects tĕpillāh to the global mission of the covenant community.
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How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Prayer as earnest entreaty directed toward God, encompassing both petition and intercession
Prayer as earnest entreaty directed toward God, encompassing both petition and intercession
intercession, supplication; by implication, a hymn BDB: prayer Usage: prayer.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 77 lexical occurrence verses.
תְּפִלָּה is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Tĕpillāh teaches the preacher that prayer is not a spiritual supplement to the Christian life but its primary speech. The Psalms — Israel's canonical prayer book — are organized around the practice: 77 times the noun appears, plus countless references to crying, calling, lifting hands, and speaking to God. The Old Testament's portrait of prayer is not one of serene meditation but of engaged, honest, sometimes anguished address.
The Psalms of lament — which constitute roughly a third of the Psalter — are all prayers. They are models of tĕpillāh that refuse to package distress into acceptable religious language; they bring the whole of human experience before God and expect a response. Solomon's temple dedication prayer (1 Kings 8) shows what communal prayer looks like at its most comprehensive: an address that covers every conceivable contingency of Israel's future and grounds every petition in God's character.
Daniel's prayer (Dan. 9) shows what intercessory tĕpillāh looks like when the stakes are national and historical. Psalm 65:2 shows why any of it is possible: God hears. The preacher who recovers tĕpillāh in full will not reduce prayer to a devotional warm-up or a mechanical duty, but present it as the primary relationship-exercise of the covenant people — the practice through which they do business with the living God who hears and responds.
Ps.65.2
Tĕpillāh is derived from the verb pālal, which carries a sense of interceding or judging — sometimes including self-examination or self-assessment. This root meaning suggests that prayer in the biblical tradition is not mere petition but involves the one praying in a process of self-positioning before God: recognizing who God is, who the one praying is, and what the situation actually requires.
Several Psalms explicitly title themselves tĕpillāh (Ps. 17, 86, 90, 102, 142), making the word the defining genre-marker for those compositions.
The NT receives the tĕpillāh tradition and intensifies it christologically. Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 at the temple cleansing, teaching that God's house is to be a house of prayer for all nations — a mission-scope the temple had not fully realized. Jesus himself is depicted at prayer at the defining moments of his ministry (Luke 3:21, baptism; 6:12, choosing the Twelve; 9:28, Transfiguration; 22:41-44, Gethsemane).
The Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) is both a model tĕpillāh and a christological recalibration of the entire practice: 'your kingdom come' grounds prayer in eschatological hope rather than merely personal need. Paul's letters are saturated with prayer-references: 'pray without ceasing' (1 Thes. 5:17), 'in everything by prayer and petition' (Phil. 4:6), 'continuing steadfastly in prayer' (Rom.
12:12). And Revelation's vision of the prayers of the saints as incense rising before the throne (Rev. 8:3-4) completes Psalm 141:2's image: tĕpillāh, in its final form, is the worship of the whole redeemed community before the throne of God.
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