This prayer is outlined in two passages from the Gospels. One is in Matthew; the other is in Luke 11:1-13<\/a>, where the form of the prayer is slightly different (and noticeably shorter), and the accent of the accompanying teaching has to do with perseverance in faith, rather than simplicity of heart as opposed to hypocrisy. The traditional form used by Christians of basically all denominations corresponds rather to the Matthean than the Lucan form of the prayer, insofar as they differ.<\/p>\n Adoraci\u00f3n del Nombre de Dios<\/em> [\u201cAdoration of<\/small> Many Christians also make use of a unique doxology as its conclusion: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever<\/em> is its most familiar phrasing in English, inherited from the King James Bible. (Catholics normally add this only during Mass, at the recitation of the Our Father that concludes the Eucharistic canon.) This doxology is traceable to a first- or possibly second-century work, the Didache<\/em>1<\/sup>; it also occurs in some Greek manuscripts of Matthew, but it is universally agreed to be an interpolation there.<\/p>\n To review the text:<\/p>\n Our Father who art in heaven,<\/span> For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;\u00a0<\/span>but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.<\/span><\/p>\n Our Father who is in heaven: For if you remit people their trespasses, your heavenly Father too will remit yours; but if you do not remit people, neither will your Father remit your trespasses.<\/p>\n Detail from The Last Judgment<\/em> (ca. 1435)<\/small> Instead of going by individual words and phrases that prompt comment, as I usually do, I\u2019m going to take each of the clauses of the prayer and discuss them one by one; the prayer consists in one clause of direct address, followed by seven petitions. (I\u2019m also including transliterations, interlinear renderings, and the traditional English wording of the prayer in red.)<\/p>\n [Pater h\u0113m\u014dn ho en tois ouranois:<\/em>]<\/small><\/span> This opening clause immediately establishes two things about Christian prayer. First, it is an inherently communal activity\u2014we pray to our<\/em> Father in heaven, not to my<\/em> Father. And second, while we tend to frame fatherhood primarily in terms of affection, it was something much more grave in the ancient world. This is not to say that love between fathers and children was absent, of course! But, to take a metaphor from music, reverence would probably have been the top note in the word\u2019s chord of meanings.<\/p>\n As for \u201cthe heavens\u201d rather than \u201cheaven\u201d in the singular (which does occur in the third petition), this is probably no more than a minor variation in phrasing\u2014we have exactly the same variation in English, with both the native English heavens<\/em> and the Norse-derived skies<\/em>. It could, also or instead, be an allusion to the tiered heavenly palaces of Merkavah<\/a> mysticism and Hekhalot<\/a> literature, but (as far as I know) there is no direct evidence for this theory.<\/p>\n A depiction of the New Jerusalem from<\/small> [hagiasth\u0113t\u014d to onoma sou,<\/em>]<\/small><\/span> This is the first of the seven petitions. This reference to the divine Name deserves attention. (Note how it echoes the Second Commandment, Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain<\/em>.)<\/p>\n The Hebrew Bible is much concerned with \u201cthe honor of God\u2019s Name,\u201d i.e. his reputation. You may have heard before now about how Semiticsocieties are much concerned with image, honor, and saving face. On one level, this is a little silly; there are probably no<\/em> cultures where a person\u2019s good name is not considered precious. But Semitic cultures do have, well, a reputation for treating names, human as well as divine, as an aspect of a person\u2019s being<\/em>. This is where the expression \u201cin the name of\u201d comes from: To speak or act in the name of<\/em> some person or institution is to do so on their behalf, or even as an extension of them. An extreme example of this attitude can be found in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, in which a person\u2019s name\u2014usually that of a current or former Pharaoh\u2014might be enclosed in a cartouche<\/a> to protect it from magical interference. Jewish culture does not appear to have gone in for this (its priesthood were a good deal more ambivalent about magic than the scribes of Egypt); however, Judaic scrupulousness about avoiding desecration of the Tetragrammaton by almost never pronouncing it is famous.<\/p>\n A diagram of the names of God from Oedipus<\/em><\/small> To \u201challow God\u2019s Name,\u201d then, is to hallow him<\/em>, his identity, his self. And what does hallowing something mean? To be perfectly truthful, I don\u2019t know. I have a few educated guesses that I hope you\u2019ll find illuminating, but they are<\/em> guesses, and should be accepted (if at all) only as such.<\/p>\n First, hallow<\/em> is the verbal form2<\/sup> of the same root from which we get the adjective holy<\/em>; \u201cto consecrate\u201d is now the more common word in English. Hallow<\/em> and holy<\/em> (from the Anglo-Saxon \u16bb\u16aa\u16da\u16b7\u16c1\u16aa\u16be [halgian<\/em>] and \u16bb\u16ab\u16da\u16c1\u16b7 [h\u00e6lig<\/em>]) are related to a string of words that, originally, had to do with bodily integrity or well-being\u2014hail<\/em>,3<\/sup> hale<\/em>, heal<\/em>, and whole<\/em> are good examples. In English, then, we are implicitly saying something like \u201cMay your good name be kept undamaged\u201d or \u201cMay no ill be spoken of you.\u201d<\/p>\n It would, of course, be nonsense to pray this with a mindset of protecting<\/em> God, as though he were at risk of dealing with uninsured medical bills or something. It is, rather, a prayer that sets our priorities\u2014one that asks that God be to humanity<\/em> what he is in himself; and thus, ultimately, a prayer for us to behave in a certain way. (The fact that God\u2019s Name is nevertheless the subject here, and of a passive verb, may serve to hint at the fact that it is never entirely within our control how we ourselves behave, let alone what happens to other things and people, which turns this into a prayer for grace.) The same goes for the original tongues, as all prayer that God be the object<\/em> of an action must be essentially of this kind.<\/p>\n A rood from the abbey church of Wechselburg,<\/small> But the analogies present in other languages are also instructive. In Greek, we again have a string of interrelated words, with \u1f05\u03b3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 [hagios<\/em>] \u201choly,\u201d \u1f01\u03b3\u03bd\u03af\u03b6\u03c9 [hagniz\u014d<\/em>] \u201csanctify,\u201d \u1f01\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 [hagneia<\/em>] \u201cpurification,\u201d etc.; however, in meaning, this Greek string seems to be closer to its primitive proto-Indo-European roots, which are associated simply with priestly, sacrificial affairs, without shedding any special light on them. Intriguingly, the Latin sacer<\/em> (one of its two most common adjectives meaning \u201choly,\u201d the other being sanctus<\/em>\u2014both together forming our emphatic adjective \u201csacrosanct\u201d) seems to derive from an Indo-European verb meaning \u201cto make a treaty,\u201d almost echoing the Judaic association of holiness with the Lord\u2019s covenant.<\/p>\n But of course, this prayer was probably first delivered in Aramaic.4<\/sup> Now, I don\u2019t speak Aramaic, and my command of Hebrew is \u2026 well, isn\u2019t<\/em>. I know something about<\/em> both languages, but that\u2019s rather a knowledge of linguistics than of languages\u2014structural more than practical knowledge. I\u2019ve therefore done my level best not to go beyond publicly available facts here, and am very likely missing stuff.<\/p>\n Semitic languages don\u2019t build words from stems like English or Latin do. (For example, stem<\/em> is a stem, to which you can add the noun pluralizing suffix -s for multiple stems<\/em>, or the verb past suffix \u2013ed<\/em> if something has stemmed <\/em>from it.<\/em>) Semitic languages build words from radicals\u2014groups of consonants (three is typical) that encode a general meaning; vowels, and additional consonants and affixes can then be inserted in various ways. A famous example is based on Arabic: perhaps K-T-B is a radical associated with things like writing and reading. The word for \u201cbook\u201d might be katab<\/em>, with a plural created by inserting new vowels (e.g. kitub<\/em>), or maybe a prefix like ma<\/em>\u2013 would turn it into a word for \u201ca place of books,\u201d i.e. a school, or maktab<\/em>.<\/p>\n There is a pan-Semitic radical, spelled \u05e7-\u05d3-\u05e9 [q-d-sh<\/em>] in Hebrew letters, that frequently forms the source of words for holiness and religious things in Hebrew: holiness as a quality is \u05e7\u05b9\u05d3\u05b6\u05e9\u05c1\u200e [q\u00f2dhesh<\/em>]; one of the mourners\u2019 prayers is the \u05e7\u05b7\u05d3\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u200e [qad\u00eesh<\/em>]; the Temple itself was the \u05de\u05b4\u05e7\u05b0\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05e9\u05c1\u200e [miqd\u00e2sh<\/em>], \u201cthe holy place.\u201d Now, the fact that a given radical was used in Hebrew doesn\u2019t prove it was used the same way in Aramaic (or indeed that it was used in Aramaic at all); however, at least one Syriac version of the Lord\u2019s prayer does record the verb of this clause as\u2014and I\u2019m not even going to try<\/em> to get the Syriac script right!\u2014netqada\u0161<\/u><\/em>, which again seems to be from the same radical.<\/p>\n The meanings of the radical \u05e7-\u05d3-\u05e9, or at any rate the ones I was able to find, do trend religious quite consistently; but it\u2019s hard to draw much from that alone. I was hoping I might find out more about the remote origins of the radical\u2014for instance, \u201cset apart\u201d is often used as a synonym or alternate rendering for \u201choly\u201d: it would be interesting to know whether this is because English speakers already associated holiness with separate-ness, independently as it were, or if this was an association we picked up from exposure to the Hebrew Bible. Alas, at least for now, what it means to \u201challow God\u2019s name\u201d beyond treating him reverently (if indeed there is<\/em> anything to it beyond that) remains obscure to me.<\/p>\n [elthet\u014d h\u0113 basileia sou,<\/em>]<\/small><\/span> One striking grammatical wrinkle in the Our Father is that the main verbs of its first three petitions are third-person imperatives<\/em>. These operate exactly like the second-person imperatives we\u2019re used to, except that the imperative is addressed to some third party (often an abstraction or something similarly absent)\u2014the set phrase \u201cbe it so\u201d is an English third-person imperative, probably our only one. These were more or less obsolete in the normal Koine Greek of the time\u2014their appearance in the Gospels was presumably to represent something in Aramaic that couldn\u2019t be conveniently rendered otherwise.5<\/sup><\/p>\n [gen\u0113th\u0113t\u014d to thel\u0113ma sou, h\u014ds en ouran\u014d kai epi g\u0113:<\/em>]<\/small><\/span>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2024\/10\/Adoracion-del-nombre-de-Dios-300x173.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nthe Name of God\u201d] (1772) by Francisco Goya.<\/small><\/p>\nMatthew 6:9b-15, RSV-CE<\/h4>\n
\nHallowed be thy name.<\/span>
\nThy kingdom come,<\/span>
\nThy will be done,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>On earth as it is in heaven.<\/span><\/span>
\nGive us this day our daily bread;<\/span>
\nAnd forgive us our debts,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>As we also have forgiven our debtors;<\/span><\/span>
\nAnd lead us not into temptation,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>But deliver us from evil.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nMatthew 6:9b-15, my translation<\/h4>\n
\n\u2026<\/span>Your Name be sanctified,
\n\u2026<\/span>your kingship come,
\n\u2026<\/span>your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth;
\n\u2026<\/span>give us our bread on which we subsist today;
\n\u2026<\/span>and remit us our debts, as we too remit our debtors;
\n\u2026<\/span>and do not bring us into trial,
\n\u2026<\/span>but rescue us from the oppressor.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/Fra-Ange-hellico-241x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nby Fra Angelico<\/a>, showing sinners<\/small>
\nbeing tormented in hell.<\/small><\/p>\nTextual Notes<\/h4>\n
\u03a0\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f41 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2\u00b7<\/span><\/h4>\n
\nFather ..<\/span>our \u2026<\/span>the in the ..<\/span>heavens:
\nOur Father, who art in heaven:<\/span><\/strong><\/small><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/Armenian-New-Jerusalem-edit-252x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nan Armenian Bible of 1645 (source<\/a>).<\/small><\/p>\n\u1f01\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n.<\/span>be-hallowed the name your,
\nHallow\u00e8d be thy Name.<\/span><\/strong><\/small><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/Screen-Shot-2025-03-09-at-12.10.53-AM-300x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
\n\u00c6gyptiaca<\/em> (1652-1654) by Athanasius Kircher, S. J.<\/small><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/Saxonabbey-222x300.png\")
<\/p>\n
\nGermany. Photo by Wikimedia contributor<\/small>
\nKolossos, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license<\/small>
\n(source<\/a>).<\/small><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2024\/08\/1000px-Claudius_Ptolemy-_The_World-300x216.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/censer2-300x179.png\")
<\/p>\n\u1f10\u03bb\u03b8\u03ad\u03c4\u03c9 \u1f21 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n..<\/span>come the kingship your,
\nThy kingdom come.<\/span><\/strong><\/small><\/span><\/p>\n\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u1f61\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u1ff7 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03b3\u1fc6\u03c2\u00b7<\/span><\/h4>\n
\ncome-to-be the .<\/span>will ..<\/span>your, .<\/span>as .<\/span>in heaven also on earth;
\nThy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.<\/span><\/strong><\/small><\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2025\/03\/astrolabe-300x280.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1245\/2020\/11\/sorrow-699606_1920-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n