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Japanese Jabez is a man of Judah known from two verses. In 1 Chronicles 4:9–10 his mother gives him a name close to the Hebrew word for pain, “because I bare him with sorrow.” He asks God to bless him, enlarge his land, be with him and keep him from harm, “and God granted him that which he requested.”
Where is Jabez in the Bible?
The whole account of Jabez is two verses long:
“And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.” (1 Chronicles 4:9–10)
The verses stand in a long list of names. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are genealogies, and chapter 4 opens with “The sons of Judah.” Most entries around Jabez say only who fathered whom: the verse before him records that “Coz begat Anub, and Zobebah,” and the verse after him that “Chelub the brother of Shuah begat Mehir.” Jabez is one of the few names in these chapters that comes with a story and a prayer.
Chronicles was finished after the Babylonian exile. Its last verses report the decree of Cyrus king of Persia, who let the Jews go home to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:22–23). The book does not say where the Chronicler learned about Jabez.
How many times is Jabez mentioned in the Bible?
The man Jabez is named three times, all in those two verses: twice in verse 9 and once in verse 10. He appears nowhere else in the Old or New Testament.
The same name appears once more as a place. 1 Chronicles 2:55 speaks of “the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez.” The Hebrew spelling is the same, but Scripture does not say whether the town had any connection with the man. Counting the town, the name Jabez occurs four times in the King James Bible, all in 1 Chronicles.
What does the name Jabez mean?
The Hebrew name is Ya’bets. His mother explained it herself: she bore him “with sorrow,” and the Hebrew word she used, ‘otsev, means pain. The name sounds like that word, though it is not spelled exactly the same. The Hebrew root for causing pain is made of the letters ayin, tsade and bet; the name Ya’bets reverses the last two. Enter the Bible, a study site of Luther Seminary, reads the name as “he brings pain” and notes that the reversed letters make the pun “somewhat obscure.”
The same root returns in the prayer. When Jabez asks God to keep him from harm “that it may not grieve me,” the Hebrew word for “grieve me” (‘otsbi) comes from the word for pain. The name his mother gave him speaks of pain, and his prayer asks to be spared it.
Scripture does not say why the birth was painful, and it does not name his mother. Other biblical names also record a hard birth. Rachel, dying in childbirth, named her son Benoni, which means “son of my suffering,” “but his father called him Benjamin” (Genesis 35:18). Jabez was never renamed. Scripture records no change of name for him, by his parents or by God, and verse 10 still calls him Jabez.
Who were Jabez’s father and mother, and what tribe was he from?
Scripture names neither parent. His mother speaks in verse 9, but her name is not given, and no father is mentioned. Jabez is listed in the genealogy of Judah, so the Chronicler counts him among that tribe’s families. How he is related to the men named in the verses around him is not stated.
The text also does not say when he lived, or why he was “more honourable than his brethren.” The Hebrew word means respected or honored; the NET Bible translates it “more respected than his brothers.” The verse gives the fact of his standing and no reason for it.
What is the prayer of Jabez?
The prayer in 1 Chronicles 4:10 makes four requests:
- “Bless me indeed.” The Hebrew repeats the verb for emphasis, which the King James renders “bless me indeed” and the NET Bible “greatly bless me.”
- “Enlarge my coast.” “Coast” is the old English word for a border. Modern translations say “border” or “territory.” In a list of Judah’s families, the plainest sense is land.
- “That thine hand might be with me.” He asks for God’s help and presence.
- “That thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me.” “Evil” here means harm or trouble. The NET Bible translates the line “Keep me from harm so I might not endure pain.”
The Hebrew prayer begins with the word ‘im, “if,” and never finishes the sentence. Most English versions treat it as a wish (“Oh that thou wouldest bless me”). A few, such as the New Jerusalem Bible, read it as a condition, “if you truly bless me,” whose second half is left unsaid. Translations also differ on the last clause. Most have Jabez asking to be free from pain, while the New King James has him asking “that I may not cause pain.”
The account ends with the answer: “God granted him that which he requested.” Scripture does not say how or when God answered, what land Jabez gained, or what became of him afterwards.
What does Jewish tradition say about Jabez?
The Babylonian Talmud identifies Jabez with Othniel son of Kenaz, the first judge in the Book of Judges, whom God “raised up” as “a deliverer” (Judges 3:9). A teaching quoted in tractate Temurah (16a) says that Othniel and Jabez were one man. It explains the name Othniel as “God answered him” and reads the name Jabez as a play on Hebrew words meaning that he counseled Israel and spread the Torah among them. Othniel does appear in the same chapter of Chronicles, three verses later: “And the sons of Kenaz; Othniel, and Seraiah” (1 Chronicles 4:13). Chronicles itself does not connect the two men. The identification is a rabbinic interpretation, not something the text states.
The Talmud gives two readings of the prayer. In the first, Jabez asks for a blessing in Torah study, for many students, for his learning not to be forgotten and for friends like himself. In the second, attributed to Rabbi Judah the Prince, he asks for children, for success in business and for freedom from illness. Both readings finish the unfinished “if”: Jabez says that if God does not grant the prayer, he will go down to the grave in sorrow.
What is Bruce Wilkinson’s book The Prayer of Jabez?
The prayer became famous through a small book. The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, by Bruce Wilkinson, president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, was published by Multnomah in May 2000. In a 2001 address reported by Baptist Press, Wilkinson said he had preached on the prayer for 30 years, and that the book began as a printed version of his sermon, meant as a gift for guests at the National Day of Prayer breakfast in Washington in 2000.
The publisher had expected to sell about 30,000 copies. By April 2002, Publishers Weekly reported, the book had sold 9.2 million copies in 17 languages and had spent 24 weeks at number one on the New York Times list for advice, how-to and miscellaneous books. It was followed by versions for women, teenagers and children, study guides, devotionals and merchandise.
Wilkinson urges readers to ask God boldly for blessing and for a larger “territory,” which he interprets as more opportunity to serve God. In a companion workbook he wrote that the prayer is “not for my wishes, but His will,” and in the same 2001 address he complained that secular reporters asked him about money: “I’ve been preaching this for 30 years and nobody ever talked about money until it got to be a secular best-seller.”
Why was The Prayer of Jabez criticized?
Phil Ryken, a minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, reviewed the book in May 2001. He credited Wilkinson for stressing spiritual rather than financial blessing, and for discouraging people from praying mainly for money. His objections were that the book encourages Christians to pray more “selfishly,” promises answers in the form of miracles, and treats one prayer as a key that unlocks blessing. He quoted Wilkinson’s line, “If you didn’t ask Him for a blessing yesterday, you didn’t get all you were supposed to have,” and argued that on this reasoning a believer who forgets the prayer misses the blessings God intended. He contrasted the prayer of Jabez with the Lord’s Prayer, whose requests are all made in the plural: give us, forgive us, deliver us.
A study page from Enter the Bible, published by Luther Seminary, raises similar questions: whether God’s blessing can be reduced to a formula for success, how the book’s promise of abundant personal blessing sounds beside the prayer Jesus taught, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and whether the book leaves room for suffering and service to others. It also asks how the “prosperity gospel,” the teaching that God rewards faith with material success, sounds to audiences in developing countries.
Can Christians pray the prayer of Jabez today?
Yes. For all his objections to the book, Ryken wrote that “all the prayers in the Bible–including the one that Jabez prayed–help set the agenda for our intercession.” Enter the Bible reads the passage as showing that God responds to prayer and invites people to pray as Jabez did. The disagreement is over what the prayer promises. 1 Chronicles 4:10 reports that God granted one man’s request, and it does not say that God will answer every person who repeats the same words in the same way.
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