2 Chronicles 32:20

32:20 King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed about this and cried out to heaven.

Psalms 50:15

50:15 Pray to me when you are in trouble! ¹ 

I will deliver you, and you will honor me!” ² 

Jeremiah 33:3

33:3 ‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious ³  things which you still do not know about.’

Ezekiel 36:37

36:37 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: ⁴  I will multiply their people like sheep. ⁵ 

Romans 9:27

9:27 And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children ⁶  of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved,

James 5:16-17

5:16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. ⁷  5:17 Elijah was a human being ⁸  like us, and he prayed earnestly ⁹  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months!

¹ tn Heb “call [to] me in a day of trouble.”

² sn In vv. 7-15 the Lord makes it clear that he was not rebuking Israel because they had failed to offer sacrifices (v. 8a). On the contrary, they had been faithful in doing so (v. 8b). However, their understanding of the essence of their relationship with God was confused. Apparently they believed that he needed/desired such sacrifices and that offering them would ensure their prosperity. But the Lord owns all the animals of the world and did not need Israel’s meager sacrifices (vv. 9-13). Other aspects of the relationship were more important to the Lord. He desired Israel to be thankful for his blessings (v. 14a), to demonstrate gratitude for his intervention by repaying the vows they made to him (v. 14b), and to acknowledge their absolute dependence on him (v. 15a). Rather than viewing their sacrifices as somehow essential to God’s well-being, they needed to understand their dependence on him.

³ tn This passive participle or adjective is normally used to describe cities or walls as “fortified” or “inaccessible.” All the lexicons, however, agree in seeing it used here metaphorically of “secret” or “mysterious” things, things that Jeremiah could not know apart from the Lord’s revelation. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 170) make the interesting observation that the word is used here in a context in which the fortifications of Jerusalem are about to fall to the Babylonians; the fortified things in God’s secret counsel fall through answer to prayer.

⁴ tn The Niphal verb may have a tolerative function here, “Again (for) this I will allow myself to be sought by the house of Israel to act for them.” Or it may be reflexive: “I will reveal myself to the house of Israel by doing this also.”

⁵ sn Heb “I will multiply them like sheep, human(s).”

⁶ tn Grk “sons.”

⁷ tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”

⁸ tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.

⁹ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).