Matthew 6 vs09-15 The Lord’s Prayer
Building on the previous blogs Matthew 6 Jesus and Prayer and Matthew 6 vs05-8 Jesus on Prayer – keep carrying the concepts from one to the next, be careful not to drop them.
As tempting as it might be to fly through this because every Christian knows what it says – take time to read through. There are concepts in this prayer we do not naturally know.
Verses 9-15
Therefore pray thus: Our Father who is in the heavens, hallowed be your Name …
Heaven – the concept of heaven for the audience at that time is “where God is,” or because he is a god, it was believed he would have to be “above” everything.
Hallowed – Strong’s defines hallowed as: to make holy, i.e. (ceremonially) purify or consecrate; (mentally) to venerate:—hallow, be holy, sanctify. Holy in the audience's mind set was to be set apart for service to God, to be clean.
Name – God does have a name, although it is rarely used now. ‘I am what I am’, Ehyeh (I Am), and El Shaddai is what he told Moses. But he also told Moses, “YHWH (the tetragram representation of the four Hebrew letters יהוה) would be his name forever. No one really knows exactly how to pronounce it, Yahweh or Yehovah, depends on where you put the vowels which didn’t exist in Hebrew writing. There is also another name used in Scripture which is Yah (יה). Many times he uses a phrase to distinguish himself from other gods, in English it would be, “I Am the god of Israel.’
It for sure is not “God”. God is a type of being. It’s equivalent to the word “human.” Wait, it would be “Human” with a capital ‘H’ right? That makes it much more important than the humans with a small ‘H’. Except, there aren’t any capitals in the Hebrew language.
It is interesting in most English translations, all the other gods have their names, but YHWH is typically referred to as Lord or God – neither are names. This comes out of the" "Jews" seeing his name as so sacred and holy, they wouldn’t use it. This is why no one really knows how it was pronounced. So in doing this, his name has pretty much been lost forever. Now the way people reference this most sacred and holy being is with a generic term used for a type of being. Maybe something to think on? Or maybe it doesn’t matter at all?
Names were very important to God. In the Hebrew thought process a Name was more about the essence of someone. This is why God is famous for changing people’s names. When he wanted them to be someone else (their essence) he called them into it with their name. Many are familiar with phrases like Jehovah-Jirah, Jeohova-Rapha, what is happening here is YHWH is being combined with another word to describe who God is. If we were to translate it into English today it would be ‘I Am Provides,” or ‘I Am Heals.’
It struck me while thinking through what Hallowed and Name means, as well as realizing how important a name is to YHWH/God, as often as this is recited, we generally do not make holy the essence of who he is when we reference him simply as God. It would be like someone saying, ‘You are very valuable to me and I highly respect you.’ And then only refer to you as human – or when writing, ‘Human.’ This is one of those things which would take work to adjust because of the familiarity of saying ‘God.’ It is also important to recognize when speaking in unfamiliar circles, the god they serve may not be the god you serve. It might be worth defining which god is being spoken about. This is the main reason for the use of YHWH/God when writing. Jesus is more universally understood to be a specific person. God however, is not. In fact, In Arabic, when they say ‘Allah’ that is their word for god. Allah Akbar is God is Great!
If you google ‘God’ = “A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.”
If you google ‘Yahweh’ = “Deity and national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah.” Like YHWH/God referred to himself, “I Am the god of Israel.’ Worth pondering …
Your //YHWH// Kingdom come, Your //YHWH// will be done, as in Heaven, also on the earth …
Kingdom = the word kingdom here is better thought of as “where Yah/God reigns.” Heaven is where ever Yah is. And earth is where man is. The Kingdom of Heaven is where Yah is and Reigns.
So to understand more plainly what is being said here, “May your (YHWH) reign come, your ways be done, where man is, as it is where you are.” It is well worth considering what we are saying when we recite this. We are saying we want to give up our own ways for Yah’s ways. We want him to reign in our lives and decide what is good and bad in HIS eyes, not in our own.
Give us today our appointed bread
This is explained by Jesus very well in John 6:31-59 – Yah/God gave manna to the Israelites as he brought them out of bondage. Now he gives us the “true bread from heaven,” which is Jesus to bring us out of bondage. Jesus said he is the bread of life. The people who ate manna, died. But whosoever comes and believes in him will never hunger or thirst, and will live forever.
And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.
Forgive us our debts – We do not often see this line connected to the previous, however, it is very connected. The way Yah/God brought us out of bondage was by releasing us from the penalty of sin – death. The Israelites also received this same freedom in that instead of paying the penalty themselves, they had to bring a sacrifice to the Tabernacle to atone for the penalty of their sin – death. Yah brought us out of the bondage of having to bring a sacrifice to the Tabernacle or Temple and provide for us a once and for all sacrifice of an unblemished Passover Lamb in sending us Jesus. He provide a way for Atonement forgiveness of sins.
Because Jesus has provided a way for atonement, and he is the bread of life, we will live forever. Without that way, we die.
We also forgive – As he has provided a way to forgiveness, we also should provide a way of forgiveness. Later in verse 15 (Matt-06:15, Jesus will say, if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven.
And lead us not into temptation
This line has sometimes bothered me – why would Yah/God lead us … in to temptation? Was this saying like he was leading Job into temptation? Is that the idea here? Or is this what happened when Jesus was taken to be tempted by the adversary? Let’s dig into this one.
Lead us – the meaning to this word is carrying into a situation. This same word is used a few other times and is translated as carry and bring. The one in Hebrews 13 is interesting, it refers to the animals “blood was brought” (lead us). The blood was brought as a Sin Offering to make atonement in the Holy Place. Jesus gave his own blood as a sin offering.
Temptation – the meaning of this word has to do with testing or an examination. Jesus used this word when he would later tell the disciples to watch and pray so they would not enter into temptation. It is also the same word used of Jesus when he was carried into the wilderness. In 2 Peter 2 we see Yah/God knows how to deliver the righteous out of temptations. And in Revelation 3, he keeps people from the hour of temptation. Just as he gave a sin offering for both the Israelites and us through blood, he makes away through temptations.
The connection to 1 Corinthians 10 is very intriguing. Here we see how the Israelites “all ate the same spiritual food” – the manna or bread (give us our daily bread). And yet, Yah was not pleased with them and how this happened as examples to us. If we look back to Exodus 16, we will see how Yah/God says why he gave them manna for only six days. He did it so he could “test” them to find out whether they would walk in his Torah (today Christians call this “the law” or “commandments”) or not. What did they do? They failed.
“No temptation has taken hold of you except what is common to mankind. (TLV)” But God …
There is always a But God moment available, he will always provide a way out, the question is, will we take it? God tried to tell the Israelites, but they didn’t listen. Jesus tried to tell the disciples to stay awake and prayer – but they didn’t listen. So they ended up being carried into the testing and temptations and dealing with all the issues that came from those decisions. When Jesus was carried to his testing, he took the way out God provided – so he didn’t have to go through all the testing and temptation which would have come had he not.
But deliver us from the evil one
Deliver us – Yah/God may bring you to a test, but he also gives you the answer key. What we do with that is up to us. Follow his ways, and all goes well, as it did with Jesus. Follow our ways, and we go through the consequences of that choice.
Evil one – this is flashing back to Matthew 4 where Jesus is tested by the “devil”. The words satan and devil do not refer to one specific being. The words are more like a job description or an office held, like our word secretary or administrative assistant. Satan (not a capital 's') refers to an adversary. In this case, devil refers to a slanderer, a false accuser. Jesus referred to Peter and Judas with these same terms.
***Verse 13-14 For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. ***For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
Verse 13: For yours is the kingdom … – This part doesn’t show in any of the earlier versions. And Luke doesn’t include it in his. Most believe it came out of an extrabiblical document called the Didache which was a 2nd Century work of the early church fathers.
Verse 14: For if you forgive … This verse was never in the original text. It was written in the margin as a note in one of the old texts, and over time was added in as a verse. The meaning is conveyed and supported in other scriptures, which is probably why the person wrote it in their margin. The important thing to remember is we don’t get forgiven of our sins BECAUSE we forgive someone else. We get forgiven because of having faith and believing in Jesus.
But/And if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
First observation – why was this dropped from “this is how you should pray?” It does seem to have a change from the we/us to the you format. But oh, can you imagine if every time we recited the Lord’s Prayer we had to say something like, “If we do not forgive, our Father will not forgive us.” OUCH!
Second observation – it kind of is in there when we say forgive our debts and we forgive our debtors. This means it was more of a reiteration of what was said before. There has to be a reason Jesus added this AGAIN right? Maybe we should give this one a second thought as well.
Observation
As I finished this up, I noticed correlation to something from the previous blog Matthew 6 vs05-8 Jesus on Prayer, prayer is about participation of the heart, the body, and the mind in connecting with God. We could break this prayer down into three parts as well
The heart: recognizing Yah/God is holy (set-apart) and wanting his reign to come, to walk in his ways and not our own.
The body: learning to rely on God as he has given us our daily bread in Jesus, freed us from bondage as we also free those in bondage to us.
The mind: choosing the path he has provided in order to avoid temptations and to deliver us from the consequences.
It could be a stretch maybe? Regardless, if we walk in oneness with Yah/God, all goes well with us. Jesus was giving us a way to remember this, and a way to keep a map before us as we walk daily. Now the question is, how often do we use this map?
Previously published on WordPress https://calltoceasefire.wordpress.com/2024/01/07/matthew-69-15-the-lords-prayer/