Raise up Your servant (a prayer recalling Hezekiah)

A short prayer for visiting the sick, from a Roman service book of the late 700s. It recalls Hezekiah and asks God to raise up the sick person by name.

Picture: The Paris Psalter, The Illness and Prayer of Hezekiah, Constantinople, mid-900s AD

Plain English

O God, You added fifteen yearsto the life of Your servant Hezekiah.

So too may Your power raise up Your servant (name)from the bed of sickness to health.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

O God, You added fifteen yearsto the life of Your servant Hezekiah.

So too may Your power raise up me, Your servant,from the bed of sickness to health.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Traditional wording, 1864

O God, Who didst add fifteen years to the life of Thy servant Hezekiah;let Thy power raise up Thy servant N. from the bed of sickness unto health;through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Latin of the Gregorian Sacramentary (Wilson’s 1915 edition), with William Bright’s 1864 translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: William Bright, Ancient Collects, 1864.

When it is said

The old Roman book gives it as a prayer to say when visiting a sick person.

Anyone can pray it at a bedside or at home with the sick person’s name, or pray it for themselves.

Where it comes from

No author known

From Rome to Charlemagne

Charlemagne asked Pope Hadrian I for the Roman service book that bore St Gregory’s name. A letter of the pope, written between AD 784 and 791, shows that he sent it from Rome. Among the book’s prayers for the sick is this one, which recalls King Hezekiah.

H. A. Wilson, The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great (1915), introduction and page 138

Hezekiah’s 15 years

The prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah that his illness would kill him. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed with tears. God sent Isaiah back to say that He had heard the prayer and would add 15 years to the king’s life (Isaiah 38:1-5). Hezekiah recovered and wrote a song of thanks (Isaiah 38:9).

Isaiah 38:1-5; Isaiah 38:9

The Scripture in it

“Go and tell Hezekiah that this is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.”

Isaiah 38:5 Echoed God’s word to Hezekiah that He would add 15 years to his life.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

In Latin

Deus, qui famulo tuo Ezechiae ter quinos annos ad uitam donasti,

ita et famulum tuum N. a lecto aegritudinis tua potentia erigat ad salutem.

Per.

From the Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great, ed. H. A. Wilson (Henry Bradshaw Society, 1915), page 138, on archive.org.

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