“After this manner therefore pray ye:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
- The Lord's Prayer...
Special Guest Post
It's my privilege to share this discourse on the Lord's Prayer with you. It was written by a friend who I consider, despite his protestations to the contrary, a consummate Hebrew scholar. I frequently consult him when I have any question about how a passage in the bible's Old Testament ought to be rendered.
The Lord's Prayer (source)
NOTE: With my apologies, I have struggled to discover how to render the Hebrew characters in the following text properly with their vowel pointings, thus far to no avail. If I can figure out how to improve the display of the Hebrew words, I will edit this post to improve the appearance. -
Prayer as Submitting Myself to God's Judgement
by Denny Gulliford
v 21.8.21
As a student of Biblical Hebrew, I am by no stretch of the imagination a Hebrew scholar. In fact, when I open the Hebrew scriptures, rather than feeling like a scholar, more often I feel like an impoverished, starving, third world child walking into a supermarket, amazed, overwhelmed and unable to comprehend what I see. That is a good description of how I felt when I ran across the Hebrew word פלַל (pah-lahl). A simple English gloss of פלַל would be "he judged". In the form התפלל (heet-pah-lehl) it has the sense of self judgement or entering yourself into judgement. The amazing thing for me was that this Hebrew thought, "he entered himself into judgement," is almost universally translated into English as, "he prayed."
It helps to realize that in English the word "judgement" is often associated with condemnation, but that is not the case here. התפלל, "he entered himself into judgement," has the sense of going before a judge who has the authority and power to make a decision concerning you that is both binding and final. To say it another way, prayer or entering yourself into judgement, is like going before a judge with the authority to intercede and mediate in your life. But not mediate in the English sense of the word, that is to mediate ideas or opinions. Our judge has the authority and power to mediate facts. He can change the outcome.
Most of my experience with prayer is associated with prayer requests. My need or the need of someone else is most often what motivates me to pray. Or I pray to thank the Lord for His answer to a prayer request or for His blessing, like the food on the table before me. Or I pray to praise the Lord for being the kind of God who would even listen a sinner like me, which is to say I do a lot of confessing when I pray. But virtually all my prayers have something to do with a prayer request.
You may have heard the question that if God is all knowing and already knows everything we need, why bother to pray and ask Him? He already knows. Right? If you are thinking of prayer in terms of prayer requests, I suppose the best answer you can give to that question is yes, God already does know our needs. But like our earthly fathers who know what we need, He just likes to hear us ask. In contrast to that answer, I think the answer of an Old Testament saint to the question, "Why should we pray?" would be something like this... Of course requests are a very important part of prayer. We bring our prayer requests to God as an act of worship because our God is the God, and He alone is worthy of our prayers. But don't miss the main point of prayer. The main purpose of prayer is not petition, it is submission, התפלל, submitting ourselves to the will of God as an act of worship.
Paul wrote to the Colossian church that one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. One day everyone will either voluntarily submit or involuntarily be submitted to the authority and lordship of Jesus. As followers of Jesus we don't have to wait for that day. We have the privilege to daily, hourly, moment by moment submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus in prayer.
It is not surprising to me that maybe the best example of this התפלל, Hebrew concept of prayer in the whole Bible is the personal prayer of Jesus Himself in the Garden of Gethsemani. Is any follower of Jesus surprised that Jesus knew how to pray? Jesus prayed confessing the desire of His heart, that if possible this cup might pass from Him. But after His confession and petition, Jesus concluded by submitting Himself to the judgement and will of the Father – yet not My will but Thy will be done.
When His disciples came to Jesus asking Him to teach them to pray, I have always understood this as a request to teach them how to talk with God. As we teach our children, prayer in its most basic sense is simply talking with God. But if all these guys were thinking in Hebrew about prayer as submitting yourself to the judgement of God, then I suspect their request might more fully be understood as, Lord teach us how to properly enter the presence of God. Teach us how to humble ourselves before the Father and properly submit ourselves to His will.
Jesus responded to their request by teaching them to begin prayer by remembering who they were talking to, our Father which art in heaven. When you pray, think of all God created in the heavens around Him. Remember that God is the source, creator and owner of everything that is. He made it all and it all belongs to Him. Then personalize that thought by calling Creator God your father. My earthly father is the source of me. Your earthly father is the source of you. Our Father God is not just the creator of the heavens. He created you. God is not only the creator, source and owner of everything that exists. He is also the source and creator of you. God personally created you. You belong to Him, so begin your prayer by recognizing you are talking to the Father you belong to, who made you, loves you and cares about you.
Hallowed be Thy name. Hallowed is kind of an old fashioned word for holy. The Hebrew concept of holy, קדש (qah-dash), has the significance of something set apart from the ordinary for a special purpose, that is, something consecrated for a special service. God is apart from, beyond and above all the ordinary stuff of life, including our health, our relationships, the bills, work, daily demands, and the up keep of life. Don't misunderstand that all these things are not important to God. They are. We haven't gotten to the end of the prayer yet and you know what's coming. It's just to say that when your only reason for approaching God is to bring Him the ordinary issues of your life, you aren't giving Him the place He deserves in your life. Hallowed be thy name is not a request, it's a command. We are commanded to approach God in prayer with Him as our focus, who He is, His holiness, rather than with ourselves, our requests and our needs as the focus of our prayers.
Thy kingdom come. Now to have a kingdom, you have to have two things. First of all, you have to have a king. You can't have a kingdom without a king. The king also has to have a realm or a domain in which he exercises his authority and power. A king in exile has no kingdom. Thus the phrase, king's domain, or kingdom, is the place where a king exercises his authority and reigns.
This phrase, "Thy kingdom come," like the previous one, "hallowed be Thy name," is particularly difficult to translate because both are something a grammarian calls a third person imperative, and there ain't no such animal in English. In English we only use second person imperatives. That is to say, I can command, "you" come here. I can also command, "y'all" come here. But I can't address you with the command, "he" come here. It does not compute in our way of thinking. Translators usually try to get around this by translating a third person imperative with something like, may he come, implying I wish he would come. Or they translate it, let him come, implying he has my permission to come. But both of these fall short of the full force of the command, come here! The phrase, "Thy kingdom come," is a command for the authority of the king to come upon me. It is a command that I be placed under the authority and power of the king, that I be subjected to his rule.
Thy will be done on earth. Like the previous two verbs, this is also a third person command. I know that one day in heaven I will joyfully always submit myself to Your will, Father. But I don't want to wait until heaven. Subject me to your authority, to your rule, to your will right here, right now on earth.
We need to take a moment at this point to understand how discourse is developed in Hebrew thought because even though the text was originally recorded in Greek, even though we are reading it in English, the text was originally thought and spoken among Hebrew men. In English we develop a thought, a discourse, an argument, by first introducing the topic. Then we develop our supporting points or arguments. And finally, we drive home our main point at the end in the form of a conclusion. That's the logical, most effective way to present an idea or argument, right? In English yes, but that is not the way thoughts are organized in Hebrew. In Hebrew you also begin by introducing the topic. But then, you state your conclusion, your main point right in the middle of your discourse. What follows the main point in Hebrew thought is examples or applications of the main point. But you find the main point right in the middle of a Hebrew thought, discourse or argument.
In this prayer there are three imperative verbs, three commands, that jump out at you in the middle of the prayer: "Hallowed be Thy name" and "Thy kingdom come" and "Thy will be done." In response to His disciples' request, Lord teach us to pray, teach us how to approach God, Jesus' main point, His conclusion is, when you pray, worship God by submitting yourself to His will, התפלל. That is how to pray. Jesus responded to their question about how to pray by affirming that the main purpose of prayer is to worship God and to submit yourself to His authority and will. Here's how to pray, Jesus answered. When you come to God in prayer, make Him holy, set apart His name, by submitting yourself to the judgement and will of God.
After Jesus' main point that prayer is coming to God with an attitude of, "Hallowed be Thy Name" and "Thy kingdom come" and "Thy will be done," what follows is four examples of how to do this, of how to submit ourselves to the holiness, authority and will of God. Jesus gives four examples of how to command in prayer, in the presence of our King, to be placed under His authority and rule:
Give us this day our daily bread is Jesus' first specific example of the command, Thy will be done. I submit myself to your judgment of what my daily needs are. I don't ask You to give me all that I want for my comfort and pleasure. Give me what you judge to be best for me. I submit myself to your judgement of what I need trusting in Your provision of it. I submit my daily needs to your will.
Forgive us our sins... I submit my sins to your judgement, trusting in your forgiveness. Judge me according to your grace, mercy and love, and help me to do the same with others.
Lead us not into temptation. When I go my own way I fall into all kinds of temptation. I submit my future to Your will. Make me willing to follow. Lead me where you want me to be and put me in the place you want me to be. I submit my future to your leading.
Deliver us from evil. In feudal times, a vassal pledged loyalty to his liege. In return, the Lord pledged protection to his servants. Lord I submit myself to Your provision of what You judge my daily needs to be. I submit my sin to Your judgement asking Your forgiveness. I submit my future to Your judgement trusting You to lead. I submit my safety and security to Your will, trusting in Your protection and deliverance from evil. I submit my daily needs, my sins, my future and my security to your judgement. Thy will be done.
Many scholars believe this is where the prayer ends, because this is in fact where the Lord's prayer does end in Luke 11. In Matthew's account what follows may be something like Matthew's benediction in response to the Lord's prayer, a benediction which has become a traditional part of our recitation of the Lord's prayer, almost like a choral response. Matthew's benediction to Jesus' teaching on prayer reminds me of King David's benediction as he described the Lord's blessing in his final public address to all the assembly of Israel before his death (1 Chronicles 29.11).
The disciples came to Jesus with the request, teach us to pray, teach us how to rightly approach God. David's final public words in 1 Chronicles 29.10-20 seem to be a good example of just this, how it pleases God for us to approach Him, thankfully and in submission to His sovereign provision and will. Remembering David's response to the Lord may have moved Matthew to also respond to Jesus' teaching about prayer with a benediction similar to David's. Whether we choose to accept it voluntarily here on earth right now, or not, is ultimately irrelevant. The reality is, Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever, as both David and Matthew concluded.
- Denny Gulliford
So David blessed the Lord in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.
“But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You. For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided to build You a house for Your holy name, it is from Your hand, and all is Yours. Since I know, O my God, that You try the heart and delight in uprightness, I, in the integrity of my heart, have willingly offered all these things; so now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here, make their offerings willingly to You. O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Your people, and direct their heart to You; and give to my son Solomon a perfect heart to keep Your commandments, Your testimonies and Your statutes, and to do them all, and to build the temple, for which I have made provision.”
Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless the Lord your God.” And all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed low and did homage to the Lord and to the king.
- 1 Chronicles 29:10-20
