The brakhah, blessing or benediction, is the chief form of prayer in Jewish worship. The New Testament provides numerous examples of the use of this form of prayer by Jesus and the apostles.
The brakhah (translated in the Christian Scriptures aseucharistia [thanksgiving] or eulogia [blessing] and in the Latin Bible as benedictio [blessing] or gratiarum actio [thanksgiving]) was and is the chief form of prayer in Jewish liturgy and spirituality. It is the chief form of prayer because it determines the meaning and context of all prayer, as well as the dynamic movement and horizon of all liturgy and all the feasts. The brakhah consists in an attitude and formula of wonder, praise, thanksgiving, and acknowledgment of the unmerited divine benevolence that provides for God’s children and gladdens them with the fruits of the earth and every kind of blessing. In the course of time the mark of the brakhah came to be the set, standardized words with which every prayer began and ended: “Blessed be you, Lord, our God.” At times, the passive form (“Blessed be you … ”) might be replaced by the active form: “I bless you.… ”
The New Testament tells us of many brakhot, some explicit, others—the majority—implicit. Among the best known is the one in which Jesus thanks the Father for having chosen “babes” as the recipients of his revelation:
I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt. 11:25–27; cf. Luke 10:21–22)
The most famous of the implicit brakhot is the one to which all the synoptic evangelists refer in the account of “the institution of the Eucharist”:
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, and gave thanks, and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. (Mark 14:22–24)
Another testimony to Jesus’ use of the brakhah form is in Mark 6:41, where the influence of the Eucharist is undeniable: “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves … ” (a similar passage occurs again in Mark 8:6–7). Other references to blessings are in Mark 10:16, where Jesus took the children in his arms and “blessed them,” that is, said a brakhah over them, and in John, where Jesus utters a brakhah to the Father for the raising of Lazarus: “Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me … ’ ” (John 11:41–42).
Other New Testament writings besides the Gospels present many other pieces of evidence. Colossians 3:17 serves as an example: “And whatever [pan] you do, whether in word or deed, do it all [panta] in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” According to the rabbinical tradition, the devout Jew ought to recite over one hundred brakhot daily. We cannot fail to see the same sensibility at work in Paul’s exhortation to “do everything” to the accompaniment of thanksgiving. In all things (panta), nothing excluded, Christians, like Jews, should utter a brakhah. The only difference is that Christians are to do this “in the name of the Lord Jesus” or “through him,” that is, with the same intention and the same fullness of commitment he had.
Ephesians 5 is also meaningful: “Be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks [eucharistountes pantote huper pantōn] to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:18–20). Christians should offer brakhot at all times (pantote) and for everything (huper pantōn).
The Pauline letters not only show the importance of the brakhah; they also tell us the motives that give rise to it. These can be summed up under two headings: the existence of the new Christian communities and, above all, the event that is Jesus, now acknowledged and proclaimed as Messiah and Son of God. If Christians ought to utter a brakhah in every situation and every event, then certainly this response is called for in face of the two main events of early Christianity: the multiplication of communities by the hundreds and the experience of the dead and risen Jesus (1 Cor. 1:4–9; Col. 1:3–5; Eph. 1:3–14).