Reading the Lord's Prayer

The prayer almost everyone knows

Many believers can say the Lord's Prayer with their eyes closed. In this lesson you will read it line by line in Greek and review pronouns, cases and imperatives along the way. There are no new rules. The new words are οὐρανός, γῆ, θέλημα and πονηρός. Jesus introduces the prayer with the words "this is how you should pray", and in Greek that is προσεύχεσθε ("pros-YOO-khes-theh"), a present imperative, 2nd person plural: "you, pray".

The address: vocative and cases

The prayer opens with a vocative. πάτερ ("PAH-ter") is "Father!", the case of calling someone (the cases). The panel also marks it a "title", the database's name for a word used as a title. The next word, ἡμῶν, is "our": the genitive plural of ἐγώ "I", literally "of us" (personal pronouns). After it comes ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, where ὁ is an article in the vocative, making "you who are in the heavens" (the article). ἐν takes the dative (prepositions), so οὐρανοῖς ("oo-ra-NOYS") is dative plural, literally "the heavens". οὐρανός occurs about 270 times; the plural is normally translated "heaven". A close partner is in verse 10: γῆς ("gace"), "earth", about 170 times.

Three "let it" prayers

The first three petitions are third-person imperatives, which you read as "let it be…" or "may it…" (the subjunctive and imperative). They are ἁγιασθήτω ("hag-ee-as-THAY-toh"), "let it be hallowed", ἐλθέτω ("el-THEH-toh"), "let it come", and γενηθήτω ("gen-ay-THAY-toh"), "let it be done". The ending -τω is the third-person imperative mark, and -θη- is the sign of the aorist passive (middle and passive); because γενηθήτω is passive in form only, the panel labels it passive deponent. The subjects are all nominative: ὄνομά "name", βασιλεία "kingdom" and θέλημά ("THEL-ay-ma"), "will". θέλημα occurs about 60 times. At the end of verse 10, ὡς ("hoce"), "as", is labelled a particle in the panel, and ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς is a comparison: as in heaven, so also on earth.

Requests for us

Now come second-person imperatives, spoken directly to the Father. δὸς ("dos"), "give", and ἄφες ("AH-fes"), "forgive", belong to the -μι family, so they look unusual (contract and -μι verbs), but the panel tells you the mood. Before the bread comes ἐπιούσιον ("ep-ee-OO-see-on"), a word whose meaning is debated. English Bibles say "daily" and the 개역한글 says "일용할", but it has also been understood as "for tomorrow" or "needed for existence". The word is rare, found in the New Testament only in the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3), so scholars have not settled it.

Verse 12 has another ὡς καί comparison, which ties our forgiving to being forgiven: ἄφες … ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν ("af-AY-kam-en"), "forgive … as we also have forgiven". ἀφήκαμεν is an aorist indicative, 1st person plural, a statement of fact about what we have done.

The last petitions and the ending

The prohibition in verse 13 begins with μὴ. εἰσενέγκῃς ("ice-eh-NENG-kays"), "lead", is not an imperative but a (2nd) aorist subjunctive; a prohibition addressed to "you" is often μή with the aorist subjunctive, as here. Then ῥῦσαι ("HROO-sigh"), "deliver", is a second-person imperative. The last word, πονηροῦ ("pon-ay-ROO"), is from πονηρός, "evil", about 80 times. With the article it can be "evil" or "the evil one". In the genitive the masculine and neuter forms are identical (πονηροῦ), so the form alone cannot decide between "the evil one" (masculine) and "evil" (neuter). The BSB reads "the evil one", the 개역한글 "악" (evil), and the panel files πονηροῦ as neuter, which is itself one interpretation.

You will see that many words late in verse 13 carry a TR badge. The doxology, "for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen" (words 13–27), is missing from the oldest manuscripts and found in many later ones and in the TR. That is why the 개역한글 prints it in parentheses and the BSB leaves it out of the text. Each Bible is quoted here as it stands.

Summary

You called God with the vocative πάτερ, prayed for the name, kingdom and will with third-person imperatives, asked for bread and forgiveness with δὸς and ἄφες, and read a prohibition built from μή and a subjunctive. Recognising the ending tells you what kind of request a verb makes.

Words in this lesson

• οὐρανόςouranosheaven272 times in the NT
• γῆgēearth: planet167 times in the NT
• θέλημαthelēmawill/desire62 times in the NT
• πονηρόςponērosevil/bad78 times in the NT

Practice