Hebrew Word Study – Introspection  – Pelilah      Pei Lamed Lamed Hei

Isaiah 16:3: “Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth.”

The context of this verse is where the ambassadors of Moab have presented themselves before the rulers of Judah and encouraged them to take counsel and execute judgment. What is curious is the word that is used for judgment and clearly, the context calls for the English word judgment is not the normal or common Hebrew word for judgment which is shaphat. Instead, the word that is used is pelilah. Pelilah is a word used to describe a process of introspection. It is interesting that pelilah comes from the same root word for prayer or palal.  

Indeed, prayer is a time for interreflection. If you think about it, if you live a life of prayer you are not constantly asking for God to give you things or to help you out in circumstances.  Most of your time is spent just talking things over with God. 

People who have watched the movie or seen the play Fiddler on the Roof often comment on the relationship the main character, Tevye had with God and how he just talked with God as a friend would talk with a friend.  For instance, in one scene we find him not in a synagogue, not wearing a tilt over his head nor reciting some memorized prayer. Instead, he is just talking with God: “Dear Lord, you make many many poor people, I realize, of course, it’s no great shame to be poor. But it’s no great honor either. Would it be so terrible if I had just a small fortune?” He is not asking God to be rich, he is not even complaining to God that he is not rich. He is just simply talking it over with God.  He is in the process of introspection, of making some sort of judgment with regard to his circumstances and he has chosen to include God in this time of introspection.  He realizes that God created him to be what he is, just a poor milkman eking out an existence, living his life the best way he can to fulfill whatever mission it is that God sent him into the world to accomplish. 

If I use myself as an example I would daresay that the majority of my prayers are introspection, having a conversation with God. Just talking things over with God. In pelilah prayers we are reflecting on what we truly want in life, the direction we are heading, and just how far along we are in our journey through life. As a believer in God we just naturally want to include God in this time of introspection.  Many times, the answer to our dilemmas comes from just talking things out with God.  There is no angel appearing to give us direction, there is no voice coming out of heaven there is just that simply knowing that God is either pleased with our journey or not and if He is not we seek to change direction and follow a path that He is pleased with. 

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani a gifted writer, philosopher, and theologian who lived in silence for much of his life. This is the same monastery that I go to for my spiritual retreat where I live in silence for a week. He wrote: “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”  

From the many hours during my silent retreats at the monastery, I would sit and just talk with Jesus about my life, the direction I was going, and what I really wanted to accomplish with my life. Many times during my prayers of pelilah I discovered that I had placed my ladder against the wrong wall and when I returned from my journey into silence I placed my ladder against a wall that I knew would bring God pleasure. So many decisions I make in life are meant to being me pleasure only to discover I have no pleasure in those decisions, that the real pleasure I feel is to feel the pleasure of God. 

I have discovered that when I neglect my prayers of pelilah I find myself feeding my soul and nourishing my soul with things that strengthen my own ego and before long my prayers are basically prayers of petitions. Then before long, it seems like the only time I approach God would be like the old boy from down South would say: “With a handful of give ME’s and a mouthful of much oblige.” I end us saying what I want and not what God wants. Even though my heart cries out for what God wants. 

You know God doesn’t listen to our petitions, He knows what our needs are even before we ask. He does not sit on His throne with his chin in his hand patiently listening to us as we rattle on and on with our requests. Matthew 6:7-8: “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (8) Be not ye, therefore, like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.” 

Prayer is not communicating to God information that He does not already know. God doesn’t need our prayers, we need them. The moment someone asks me to pray for them, it is done and accomplished.  My prayer is lifted up to God.  However, I need to take that person’s hand and speak the words of his prayer, maybe filled with a lot of thees and thous just so he gets a spiritual feel, but God is already on the road to answering that prayer, in fact, He has answered it before I even get to my “amen.”  

In any relationship, there is a need for communication.  Without communication, that relationship will die.  So too with God, we need to communicate with Him, not that He needs to hear us out, but we need to hear ourselves out to search out our hearts and let God shine a light on what He sees but we do not see unless we take the time to see what that Light is revealing. 

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