The Prayer of Jabez is a minor prayer by a minor figure in a minor part of the Bible.
The Prayer of Jabez is a major bestseller that is a major component of a major Evangelical marketing campaign. Nine million copies sold. Top of The New York Times bestseller list. Numerous spin-off products.
The core product is the overpriced, undersized book The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking through to the Blessed Life by Protestant minister Bruce Wilkinson. (At ten bucks for ninety-two pages that are less than half the size of a normal book, this is basically a hardcover edition of one of Wilkinson’s talks.)
Wilkinson says a number of years ago he began to say a short prayer daily and, in response, God poured out blessings on him. Now he encourages others to say the prayer daily in expectations of blessings.
Jabez Who?
There’s a reason you probably haven’t heard of Jabez: He is a very minor figure mentioned only in passing in the nine-chapter genealogy that begins 1 Chronicles. Ironically, it doesn’t name his parents or children. Here is everything we know about him:
“Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested” (1 Chr. 4:9-10, NKJV).
“More Honorable”
Wilkinson’s thesis is that Jabez was more honorable and blessed than others and that, by imitating his prayer, we too will be more honorable and blessed. But the idea Jabez was more honorable is rather iffy in the Hebrew. The word in question-nikbad-more normally would be translated to say Jabez was more “honored” than his brethren (more famous, respected, noteworthy) or even that he was was more “rich” than his brothers, not necessarily more virtuous.
“I Bore Him in Pain”
Wilkinson tell us that “In Hebrew, the word Jabez means ‘pain.’ A literal rendering could read, ‘He causes (or will cause) pain'” (p. 20).
This isn’t true. The relevant Hebrew word for pain is ‘otsev (grief, sorrow, pain, hurt), and it is not possible to give a literal rendering of the name. It is clear the author intends a pun on the word for grief, but, like many Hebrew pun-names, it can’t be given a literal translation.
All one can say is that Jabez (Hebrew, Ya ‘bets) sounds a bit like ‘otsev, and there is a pun going on in the passage. (This is clearer when the words are spelled in the Hebrew alphabet; Ya ‘bets contains all of the consonants of ‘otsev–ayin, bet, and tsadhe–but in a different order.)
“Called on the God of Israel”
Jabez devotees don’t give full weight to the fact that the text stresses who Jabez was praying to: the God of Israel.
This is important. It is easy for us to forget this today, when half of the people on earth are monotheists, but in the ancient world many people worshiped other deities, even in Israel.
Jabez may be special not because of what he was praying for but who he was praying to. Part of why he was singled out for mention may be that he resisted the ternptation to worship other gods and made his vows to the God of Israel.
Prayer or Vow?
Note that the text does not claim Jabez said his prayer daily, as Wilkinson encourages. It doesn’t even say that he prayed it regularly. In fact, he may have prayed it only once.
This is because it actually may have been be a vow. This possibility is clearer in other translations. For example, Young’s Literal Translation renders the first part of the prayer as: “If blessing thou dost bless me . . . ”
Noted Old Testament commentator C. F. Keil (among others) sees it as a vow in which the conditions of the vow are spelled out but the corresponding promise is omitted. That is, he is saying, “‘If thou wilt bless me, and enlarge my coast, and thy hand shall be with me, and thou wilt keep evil far off, not to bring sorrow to me’ – without the conclusion, Then I vow to do this or that (cf. Gen. 28:20f), but with the remark that God granted him that which he requested.”
Keil adds: “The reason of this is probably that the vow had acquired importance sufficient to make it worthy of being handed down only from God’s having so fulfilled his wish, that his life became a contradiction of his name; the son of sorrow having been free from pain in life, and having attained to greater happiness and reputation than his brothers” (Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, 3:88).
A Spiritual Paragon?
While Jabez is noteworthy to the writer of Chronicles, he is not a paragon of spirituality. His prayer is basically is a prayer of self-interest.
He begins by asking “that you would bless me indeed.” There’s nothing wrong with that. Every petitionary prayer asks God for some blessing, either for ourselves or others.
In this case, he’s praying for himself. That’s fine, too. God wants us to pray for our personal needs. Thus the Our Father includes things like “give us this day our daily bread.” But God also wants us to pray for others. In the Our Father we pray collectively, for ourselves and others: “give us . . . forgive us . . . lead us.” The paragon of spirituality is praying even for one’s enemies (Matt. 5:44).
Jabez doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t pray for anybody but himself-at least not in his one recorded prayer.
“Enlarge My Territory”
Trying to make Jabez sound spiritual, Wilkinson says that in asking for more territory Jabez “wanted more influence, more responsibility, and more opportunity to make a mark for the God of Israel” (p. 30, emphasis in original).
This lets Wilkinson tell his readers that in repeating this clause “you ask God to enlarge your life so you can make a greater impact for him” (ibid.) .
As exegesis, this is wishful thinking. Nothing in the text indicates Jabez wanted to “make a mark for God” or “make a greater impact for him.” The vocabulary Wilkinson uses is late-twentieth-century Evangelical. It’s anachronistic.
The motive he attributes to Jabez is similarly anachronistic. The ancient Hebrew manner of praying would more naturally ask God to show his greatness by doing great things for the petitioner, not ask him to do great things for the petitioner so that the petitioner could have more influence for him.
While Jabez’s petition could be a literal request for more land (a common concern in ancient Israel) or as a metaphor for more influence, in either case he–Jabez-is meant to be the beneficiary. It is not credible to imagine a man of this culture, in this era, with this set of self-interested petitions is praying for more land or influence so that God may be the beneficiary.
“That I May Not Cause Pain”
Jabez’s self-interested petitions continue as he asks that God’s hand would be with him-a common Old Testament metaphor for success.
Then he asks “that you would keep me from evil that I may not cause pain!” Wilkinson interprets this as meaning, roughly, “Keep me from sinning so that I may not hurt others.” That would be a more spiritual interpretation than what is likely. Jabez almost certainly meant “Keep me from harm so that I may not be hurt.”
Wilkinson’s interpretation is facilitated because he is using the New King James Version, which is normally quite a good translation. But here it’s rendering is idiosyncratic.
While it is possible to translate lebilti ‘atsbi as “that I not cause pain,” it is more likely translated “that it not pain me.” Thus the overwhelming majority of Bible translations render the petition something like “keep me from harm that it may not pain me,” punning on Jabez’s name.
This makes far more sense. “Keep me from sinning so I won’t hurt others” may be a sentiment among some Evangelicals today, but it’s anachronistic here. “Keep me from harm so I won’t get hurt” is a much more likely petition from an ancient Hebrew whose name sounds like the word for hurt.
What’s the Significance?
Why is Jabez mentioned in Scripture? It would seem he was well known at one time in Israel’s history as a man who prayed for a good life and lived one despite his name.
He may have made a vow in which he punned on his name and his family passed down the memory. He may have simply prayed a prayer that punned on his name. However clever a twist he puts on the end of his prayer, it is self-interest from front to back. There is nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t make him a spiritual giant.
A Sense of Proportion
Can Catholics pray the Jabez prayer? Well, sure. There isn’t anything wrong with the prayer itself. The problem is Wilkinson telling people they should say it daily, expecting God to uniquely reward this prayer.
There is no such thing as “the Jabez blessing.” God made no such promise, and inflating a microscopic Old Testament character with modern, Madison-Avenue, Evangelical ad-speak does not create one.