No. 67 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Ancient of Days
Before time had a name, God was, and in that boundless antiquity lies a mercy that nothing in creation can diminish.
I call on Thee O Magnificent One, O Ancient of Days, O Magnanimous One! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One! Bahá'u'lláh, The Long Healing Prayer · read the full prayer
Plain meaning · Ancient
1. Old; that happened or existed in former times, usually at a great distance of time; belonging to times long past; specifically applied to the times before the fall of the Roman empire;
Definition from Webster's Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain). When these Writings were translated into English, the translator relied on Webster's New International Dictionary, 1934 edition, of the same Webster's tradition. source
What “The Ancient of Days” means
The meaning above is the plain dictionary definition of the word. What follows reflects on it as a name of God, offered for your own contemplation, and not as an authoritative interpretation of the Bahá'í Writings, which rests with ‘Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi alone.
The title 'Ancient of Days' carries the weight of something that has never not existed. It points to a reality utterly beyond the sweep of history, before the first star was kindled, before the first prayer was ever whispered, God was already fully, completely God. There is no starting point we can locate, no moment when this sovereignty began. That is precisely the point. When we call on the Ancient of Days, we are orienting ourselves toward something that no upheaval in our personal lives or in the world at large can shake loose.
Across many religious traditions this name surfaces as a way of speaking about God's majesty and permanence, a ruler whose throne is not subject to rise and fall, whose counsel is not revised by circumstances. In the Bahá'í writings it becomes one of the titles associated with Bahá'u'lláh himself, connecting the eternal divine reality to a Manifestation who walked through suffering and exile without wavering. That combination, immeasurable antiquity meeting very concrete human history, gives the name a particular tenderness. The Ancient of Days is not remote. This is an eternal presence that chose to be known.
There is also something quietly reassuring in the word 'ancient' when we are in pain. Our troubles, however real and urgent, are not older than God's love for us. Whatever we are carrying today has already been held within a wisdom that predates it by more than we can calculate. That does not make hardship small, but it does place it inside something large enough to bear it.
Calling on The Ancient of Days for healing
When illness, grief, or confusion makes the future feel fragile and uncertain, the name Ancient of Days offers a particular kind of shelter. You are not calling on a force that is new to suffering, new to the complexity of human life, or uncertain of its own footing. You are turning toward the one eternal constant, and doing so, as this prayer does, in the same breath as asking for sufficiency, healing, and abiding presence. There is no need to explain your situation as though God might not have encountered it before. The Ancient of Days has been present through every form of human anguish that has ever existed.
Sitting with this name in prayer can be a way of releasing, even briefly, the anxious sense that everything depends on the next decision or the next test result. That release is not passivity, good medicine, wise counsel, and practical care all matter, and seeking competent medical attention remains important. But the interior act of addressing God as the Ancient of Days is an acknowledgment that there is a ground beneath you that is older and steadier than your fear. Whatever healing unfolds, in whatever form and timing belong to God's wisdom, it unfolds within that ground. You are held there whether you feel it in the moment or not.
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Living the Word
Applying The Ancient of Days in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Ancient of Days being asked of you right now, and how will you practice it? Keep a short note each time you return, and watch your own path with this name take shape over time. It stays on this device.
In the Bahá'í Writings
“He is God. 1 O thou who rejoicest in the glad-tidings of God! In every age and century, the Dayspring of the world is made manifest, shining with a particular splendour and revealed through a mighty sign. In the time of the Friend of God, the horizon of existence was illumined with the lights of friendship. During the era of Him Who conversed with God, the dawning-place of creation was brightened by the Light that glowed upon Sinai. In the days of the Spirit of God, the realm of being was perfumed by the sweet savours of holiness. With the dawning of the Day-Star of Medina, the horizon of the world was flooded with the light of love and grandeur. When the veil of concealment was rent asunder from the beauty of the Primal Point, the Morn of divine guidance was adorned with the resplendent rays of the most joyful tidings. And with this Most Great Revelation and the dawning of the Day-Star of the Ancient Beauty, the horizons of the world have been encompassed, blessed, and made evident and complete by all the divine bounties, effulgences, names, and attributes combined.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“To sum it up, the Ancient Beauty was ever, during His sojourn in this transitory world, either a captive bound with chains, or living under a sword, or subjected to extreme suffering and torment, or held in the Most Great Prison. Because of His physical weakness, brought on by His afflictions, His blessed body was worn away to a breath; it was light as a cobweb from long grieving. And His reason for shouldering this heavy load and enduring all this anguish, which was even as an ocean that hurleth its waves to high heaven—His reason for putting on the heavy iron chains and for becoming the very embodiment of utter resignation and meekness, was to lead every soul on earth to concord, to fellow feeling, to oneness; to make known amongst all peoples the sign of the singleness of God, so that at last the primal oneness deposited at the heart of all created things would bear its destined fruit, and the splendor of “No difference canst thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy,” would cast abroad its rays.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“10.2To sum it up, the Ancient Beauty was ever, during His sojourn in this transitory world, either a captive bound with chains, or living under a sword, or subjected to extreme suffering and torment, or held in the Most Great Prison. Because of His physical weakness, brought on by His afflictions, His blessed body was worn away to a breath; it was light as a cobweb from long grieving. And His reason for shouldering this heavy load and enduring all this anguish, which was even as an ocean that hurleth its waves to high heaven—His reason for putting on the heavy iron chains and for becoming the very embodiment of utter resignation and meekness, was to lead every soul on earth to concord, to fellow feeling, to oneness; to make known amongst all peoples the sign of the singleness of God, so that at last the primal oneness deposited at the heart of all created things would bear its destined fruit, and the splendour of “No difference canst thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy” would cast abroad its rays.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Ancient of Days
- Why is 'the Ancient of Days' used as a name of God in healing prayer?
- Names of God in this prayer evoke specific qualities of the divine that a person can consciously turn toward when seeking help. 'The Ancient of Days' invites the one praying to remember that God's care and wisdom exist outside of time, they are not subject to the same limitations that make illness and suffering so frightening. Calling on this name is a way of rooting oneself in something that does not expire or fluctuate.
- Is 'the Ancient of Days' a Bahá'í title or does it come from other scriptures?
- The phrase appears in several scriptural traditions, most notably in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Daniel, where it describes a figure of transcendent divine authority. In the Bahá'í writings it is used as one of the titles associated with Bahá'u'lláh, understood as the Manifestation of God for this age. Its appearance in the Long Healing Prayer thus carries resonances from a long history of human longing for the eternal.
- Can reciting this prayer guarantee that I will be healed?
- No form of prayer, in any tradition, functions as a guaranteed cure, and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. The Long Healing Prayer is a profound act of turning toward God with trust, and many people find it a source of real comfort and strength. For any medical concern, please consult a qualified physician, Bahá'u'lláh himself affirmed the importance of medicine and healing arts. Prayer and medical care are companions, not rivals.
- How do I use this name as a focus during personal prayer or meditation?
- Some people find it helpful to pause on a single name or phrase within the prayer rather than moving through the whole text quickly. You might simply hold the words 'Ancient of Days' in your mind, let them settle, and notice what they bring up, a sense of vastness, of being small in a reassuring rather than a frightening way, of being known by something that has always existed. There is no single correct method; the intent is to be genuinely present with what the name points to.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer