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“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name”

Matthew 6:9–13
IdiomSettledJesus
So then, this is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' (Matthew 6:9–13 BSB)

What it sounds like today

The Lord's Prayer with pieces missing.

The cultural key

Luke's version is notably shorter than Matthew's (no 'your will be done,' no 'deliver us from evil'), begins with the bare address 'Father' (the Abba entry is relevant), and arrives with its own origin story: the disciples ask 'teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples,' since a teacher's signature prayer marked his school. The richest difference is in the forgiveness line: Matthew says 'forgive us our debts,' Luke says 'forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone indebted to us,' mixing the two words in one sentence. Underneath both is Aramaic khoba, which means debt and sin at once; Luke's blend shows the seam of the shared original. Matthew's fuller form adds 'your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven' and 'deliver us from evil.' Its opening line moves in the world of the synagogue's Kaddish prayer ('Exalted and hallowed be his great name... may he establish his kingdom speedily'): the shape was familiar; the address, 'Our Father,' plural and intimate at once, is the signature. 'Hallowed be your name' asks God to make his own name holy in the world, the prophets' hope (Ezekiel 36:23), not merely that we speak it respectfully.

Recovered meaning

A prayer built from Israel's liturgy with the family address at the front: the community ('our,' never 'my') asking for the Name's honor, the reign's arrival, and heaven's conditions on earth, before any petition about bread. Luke preserves the shorter school edition; Matthew the fuller liturgical one.

Parallels: Luke 11:2–4
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