Verbs in Lord’s Prayer

Question

“Thy Kingdom come” in Lord’s Prayer:

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10 KJV)

Q1. Does this mean:

A1. We hope and pray that your kingdom will come. Or A2. We hope and pray that your kingdom has come. A3. We hope.. is now coming.

B1. We affirm/acknowledge that your kingdom will come. Or B2. We affirm.. has come. B3 We affirm.. is now coming

C. Intentionally left ambiguous as (to me at least) it is in English.

D. Something else.

Q2. Is the answer the same for “Thy will be done”?

Q3. Someone told me the original is in Aramaic not Greek as I expected. That true?

Can’t imagine Im the first to ask but I looked awhile for the answers to 1 and 2. I just threw in 3 as Im sure the answer is quite easy for anyone working on 1 and 2.

Answer 1

The operative verb referenced by the OP in the Lord's prayer is ἐλθέτω from the root verb ἔρχομαι. The form ἐλθέτω is Aorist Imperative Active - 3rd Person Singular. Strictly, this might be translated something like:

Let the kingdom of God come [as a command]

Note that this verb is neither perfect (ie, has a completed aspect) nor is it future (ie, your kingdom will come) - it is simply an earnest request for God to fulfill His promise to establish His kingdom of Heaven.

The next verb is Γενηθήτω = "be done" is exactly the same form.

That this prayer was originally spoken to the disciples in Aramaic is scarcely disputed; however, there is no evidence that it was written in anything but Koine Greek originally by Matthew and Luke.

Answer 2

Q1

The verb here is Ἐλθέτω (elthetō), meaning "to come", and it is in the imperative form (think "commanding" something). Other ways to render this in English would be statements such as "let it come", "may it come", or, if we wanted to apply the seldom used English subjunctive to capture some nuance, my translation would be:

"[we pray] that Your kingdom come".

We are expressing our desire that it comes (as insightfully noted by Perry Webb, it's a third-person imperative, not second-person--this is comparable to the Spanish "Ojala", wishing God to make something occur without directly commanding anyone). The aorist tense of this verb indicates a one-time action but does not indicate that the action is complete. The timing is not specified.

Of the options provided in the OP, A1 most closely aligns with the Greek text. We are praying that this will happen.

(textkit has a helpful discussion of Greek aorist imperative here)

Q2

This is again an aorist imperative in the Greek, same basic idea.

Q3

There are theories that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew (though this, by itself, does not tell us in what language the sermon was originally given). The principal supporting evidence is the statements of early Christian historians (there are actually quite a few who tell us Matthew was written in Hebrew), two of which are cited here:

Irenaeus of Lyons:

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect (Against Heresies 3.1.1)

Origen of Alexandria (one of the top Hebrew scholars of his time):

First to be written was by Matthew, who was once a tax collector but later an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it in Hebrew for Jewish believers (quoted by Eusebius in HE 6.26.4)

What we have to work with is the Greek text--if there were nuance in this statement in Aramaic or Hebrew we are at the mercy (or inspiration) of the translators.

For an argument that Irenaeus, Origen, and others are referring to Hebrew and not Aramaic, Buth & Pierce have recently argued cogently that ἑβραϊστί and related words were never used to refer to Aramaic. (see R. Buth and C. Pierce "Hebraisti in Ancient Texts: Does ἑβραϊστί Ever Mean 'Aramaic'?")

For my own work arguing that the Gospel of Matthew was originally composed in Hebrew, see videos here and here.

The latter half of the second video is an argument that Jesus spoke Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. It does not conclusively indicate what language was spoken when the Sermon on the Mount was first given (that would be a much longer post), but focuses on what language was used when the Gospel of Matthew was written.

Answer 3

What's throwing you is the brevity of wording and the use of the subjunctive, the latter of which is increasingly rare in contemporary English.

If it were a simple statement it would just be 'thy kingdom comes', and here we're praying 'We pray that thy kingdom comes'. But that would jar in the ear of an English speaker before the 20th century because the indicative 'comes' would sound too 'confident', almost arrogant: why pray for something if you're already confident it will happen?

This being so, classical English gives us two options: 1 the conditional 'we pray that thy kingdom would/might come', or 2 the subjunctive: "We pray that thy kingdom come.". Of the two, the conditional is more doubtful than the subjunctive, and perhaps doesn't embody the level of faith that a Christian soul ought to have in God. That's likely why it was always translated using the subjunctive: it conveys the right level of faith, without arrogance, but also without undue doubt.

There's more: the use of the subjunctive allows the traditional version of this phrase to omit the first three words ("we pray that") because they're unambiguously implied by the final three words. So you just get 'Thy Kingdom come.' This also mirrors the Latin text which is the direct source of the traditional English version; that too has just three words 'Adveniat regnum tuum' - of which the English is a word-for-word translation, and Adveniat ('come') is subjunctive too, see http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/verb:advenire

Perhaps the gentlest modern English rendering might be 'Let your kingdom come', but it's an extra word and upsets the rhythm of the prayer, to my ear.

BTW I have no expertise in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, but have no particular reason to doubt what previous posters have said about it.

The same is at work in 'Thy will be done.', which is subjunctive again. Indicative would just be 'thy will is done' and conditional would be '[we pray that] thy will would/might be done'. The Latin is more of a mouthful, is less metrical and doesn't rhyme as well: "Fiat voluntas tua". So the English translation is an improvement, in my humble opinion!

However the Latin wins in being able to put the verb at the beginning in all three of the first imprecations in the prayer; something like:

Hallowed be thy name, Come be thy kingdom, Done be thy will.

Funny word order to us (though just the sort of thing that Latin excels at), but you get the tri-fold parallelism that the English version lacks.

Answer 4

I won't rehash the Greek imperatives other than to say 3rd person imperatives in Greek are more like a request while 2nd person imperatives are commands.

Dealing what Jesus might have spoken, looking at the Peshitta and Hebrew translations, there is too much variation to say what is possible, other than Jesus would have used the imperfect tense with a jussive sense. Essentially the same meaning as the Greek.

Hebrew uses perfect tense (completed action) for past tense. Imperfect tense (incomplete action) is used for future tense. Infinitives and particles are usually used for present tense. Hebrew has 2nd person imperatives, but the idea of the Greek 3rd person imperative would be expressed with the imperfect with the jussive sense, even if not the specific jussive form. The jussive would just be a difference in the vowel points. The consonants would be the same.

Thus, there is no reason to believe what Jesus would have spoken in Hebrew/Aramaic would have been different than what Matthew expressed in Greek.