No. 50 of 124 · A Name of God · The Long Healing Prayer
The Exalting One
In the midst of illness or despair, the name The Exalting One turns our gaze upward, toward a God whose nature is to raise, not abandon.
I call on Thee O Rising One, O Gathering One, O Exalting 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 · Exalting
from “exalt”: 1. To raise high; to elevate; to lift up. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Is. xiv. 13. Exalt thy towery head, and lift thine eyes Pope. 2. To elevate in rank, dignity, power, wealth, character, or the like; to dignify; to promote; as, to exalt a prince to the throne, a citizen to the presidency. Righteousness exalteth a nation. Prov. xiv. 34. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Luke xiv. 11. 3. To elevate by prise or estimation; to magnify; to extol; to glorify. "Exalt ye the Lord." Ps. xcix. 5. In his own grace he doth exalt himself. Shak. 4. …
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 Exalting One” 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.
To exalt something is to lift it to a higher place than it could reach on its own. When Bahá'u'lláh addresses God as The Exalting One, that movement, upward, outward, toward greater light, is presented not as a rare miracle but as something woven into the very character of God. Elevation is what God does; it is part of who God is.
There is a particular tenderness in this name when you sit with it. An exalting God is not a distant or indifferent one. To exalt requires attention to the thing being lifted, a kind of intimate regard. This name suggests that God sees each soul not only as it currently is but as what it can become, and that the divine impulse is always toward the fuller, truer version of that soul.
The Exalting One appears in a cluster of names that includes the Rising One and the Gathering One, and this company matters. Rising, gathering, exalting, these are verbs of movement and of assembly. Together they paint a picture of a God who is not static, who does not leave scattered things scattered or lowly things low. Something in creation is always being gathered in, lifted up, set higher than it was before.
Calling on The Exalting One for healing
When sickness presses a person down, whether the weight is physical pain, grief, mental exhaustion, or a spirit worn thin by loss, the name The Exalting One can become an anchor for prayer. Not because invoking it guarantees recovery in any form we can predict or demand, but because it orients us toward a God whose nature runs counter to degradation and despair. Calling on The Exalting One is, in a sense, an act of trust: a quiet declaration that we believe something in us can still be lifted, even when we cannot feel it yet.
Healing of the whole person, body, mind, and soul together, is a layered and mysterious thing, and it is always wise to seek the care of skilled physicians and mental health professionals alongside any spiritual practice. Prayer and medicine are not rivals; they belong in the same life. As you recite this name within the Long Healing Prayer, you might let it speak to whatever in you feels lowest at this moment: a diminished sense of worth, a body in pain, a hope that has grown dim. Hand that particular heaviness to The Exalting One, and hold the outcome openly, in trust rather than demand.
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Living the Word
Applying The Exalting One in your life
A name of God is a virtue to grow into. Where is The Exalting One 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
“15.3O handmaid of God! The prayers which were revealed to ask for healing apply both to physical and spiritual healing. Recite them, then, to heal both the soul and the body. If healing is right for the patient, it will certainly be granted; but for some ailing persons, healing would only be the cause of other ills, and therefore wisdom doth not permit an affirmative answer to the prayer. 15.4O handmaid of God! The power of the Holy Spirit healeth both physical and spiritual ailments. Acquiring Divine Virtues”
Read in full at bahai.org →“God Is the Great Compassionate Physician Who Alone Gives True Healing October 19th All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy. If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! There have been many men who have died at last of the very disease of which they have made a special study. Aristotle, for instance, who made a special study of the digestion, died of a gastric malady. Avicenna was a specialist of the heart, but he died of heart disease. God is the great compassionate Physician who alone has the power to give true healing. All creatures are dependent upon God, however great may seem their knowledge, power and independence.”
Read in full at bahai.org →“5 For example, the mind and the spirit of man are aware of all his states and conditions, of all the parts and members of his body, and of all his physical sensations, as well as of his spiritual powers, perceptions, and conditions. This is an existential knowledge through which man realizes his own condition. He both senses and comprehends it, for the spirit encompasses the body and is aware of its sensations and powers. This knowledge is not the result of effort and acquisition: It is an existential matter; it is pure bounty. 6 Since those sanctified realities, the universal Manifestations of God, encompass all created things both in their essence and in their attributes, since They transcend and discover all existing realities, and since They are cognizant of all things, it follows that Their knowledge is divine and not acquired—that is, it is a heavenly grace and a divine discovery.”
Read in full at bahai.org →Questions about The Exalting One
- Why does the Long Healing Prayer address God by so many different names?
- Each name illuminates a different facet of a reality that no single word can fully capture. By moving through names like The Rising One, The Gathering One, and The Exalting One in close succession, the prayer draws the heart into a progressively richer encounter with God's character. It is less like reciting a list and more like turning a gem slowly in the light to see what each angle reveals.
- If I pray using the name The Exalting One, will my illness be healed?
- The prayer is offered to God, whose wisdom about what is truly healing for each person is far greater than our own. Bahá'í understanding holds that healing, physical and spiritual, is always in God's hands, and that sometimes what seems like the obvious answer to a prayer may not be what is ultimately best for a soul. Pray with sincerity and an open heart, seek competent medical care, and trust the outcome to divine wisdom rather than a specific result.
- What does it mean spiritually to be 'exalted' by God?
- In a spiritual sense, being exalted by God is less about social status or recognition and more about being drawn closer to one's true nature, the qualities of compassion, understanding, courage, and love that reflect something of the divine. Many traditions describe this as a kind of inner elevation: the soul becoming more fully itself, less weighed down by fear or selfishness. It is a gradual movement, and it often happens quietly.
- Is The Exalting One a traditional name of God in other faiths as well?
- The idea of God as one who raises up or exalts the humble appears across many religious traditions, in the Hebrew scriptures, in Islamic divine names, and in Christian doxologies, among others. Bahá'u'lláh's use of such a name in this prayer echoes a very old and widespread human intuition: that the divine impulse is not to crush but to lift. The specific name as it appears in the Long Healing Prayer belongs to Bahá'u'lláh's own revelation, carrying the full weight of his language and context.
Listen to, recite, and reflect on the whole prayer, its more than one hundred names of God.
Hear the Long Healing Prayer