Intercession

maombezi (from -omba, ‘to ask/pray’) is the correct general term for prayer on behalf of others (Romans 8:26-27). This must be kept entirely distinct from traditional practices of petitioning ancestral spirits (mizimu) for intervention in the living community’s affairs, a real and active practice in traditional African religion across much of inland Swahili-speaking East Africa; Christ’s and the Spirit’s intercession in Romans 8 must not be assimilated to this ancestor-mediation framework.