Continuing from last week)
The model prayer set out by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matt.6:9-13 commonly called the Lord’s Prayer, lays a solid foundation for prayers, either as communion with our Father in heaven or as intercession, or as a petition for meeting any exigencies. It opens with an invocative declaration: “Our Father which art in heaven” then followed with the petition “hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
There has been much debating and disputing amongst divines as to whether there are six or seven petitions in the prayer, thus posing the question of whether the last statement: “deliver us from evil” is to be regarded as a separate petition or whether it is to be taken as part of the preceding petition to read thus: “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. This is one of the points – and there are others in connection with the Christian faith which cannot simply be decided, and about which one cannot be dogmatic. Fortunately, this is not a vital point; and God forbid that anybody should become so engrossed in the argument as to miss the spirit and that which is important. The important issue in this model prayer is to notice the order in which the petitions are introduced.
The first three – Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven have regard to God and His glory. The others following, have reference to us – man. Notice that these first three petitions contain the word ‘Thy’ and have all reference to God. It is only after them, that the word “us” comes in: – give us this day our daily bread; forgive us’, lead us’ not; deliver us’. These have reference to man. It is equally important to observe that not only our desires and petitions with regard to God come first, half of the petitions are devoted to God and His glory, and only the remainder deal with our particular needs and problems.
For those interested in biblical numerology (an interest which is, perhaps, not to be entirely discouraged, though it could be dangerous, if applied more fancifully) will see in addition, that the first three petitions have reference to God and that THREE is always the number of Deity, and, of God; suggesting the three blessed persons in the Trinity. In the same way, FOUR is always the number of earth and refers to everything that is human (There are four beasts in heavens in the book of Revelation etc) SEVEN which is a combination of three and four always stands for that perfect and complete number where we see God in His relationship to earth, and God in His dealings with man.
However, it is very important to understand that it does not matter what our conditions and circumstances may be; it matters not what our work may be; nor what our desires may be; we must never start our prayer with ourselves. We must never start with our personal petitions. This principle applies even when our petitions reach the highest level. Even our concern for the salvation of souls, our concern that God’s blessings upon the preaching of gospel and concern that those who are near and dear to us may become true Christians. These things must never be given the first place or the first position, neither must we ever start with our own circumstances and conditions. It does not matter how desperate they may be; how acute the tension may be does not matter, nor whether it be physical illness, war, calamity, or terrible sudden problem confronting us; whatever it may be, we must never fail to observe this order taught in the Lord’s prayer by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our FIRST CONCERN must always be about God, His honour and Glory. There is no principle in connection with the Christian life that transcends this in importance.
Very often we tend to assume that we are quite sound and clear about principles, and that all we need is instructions about details. The truth, actually, is that in reality, the reverse of this notion anchored on ecclesiastical assumption is the case. If only we would start our prayers with a true sense of invocation; if only we would recollect that we are in the presence of God, and that the Eternal and Almighty God is there hearing and seeking us, looking upon us as our Father, and more ready to bless and to surround us with His love, than we are ready to receive, thus we should achieve more in that moment of recollection than from all our prayers put together without that realization. If only we have this concern about God and His honour and glory! It is this essence of how to make prayers acceptable to God that our Lord Jesus Christ set out to teach us how to achieve this in the model – The Lord’s Prayer. In it He did not only announce the principle, He went further to divide it up for us into three distinct ” compartments”.
The FIRST is that the honour and glory and power of God should take the first concern in our petition: ‘Hallow be Thy Name”. The word “Hallowed” (Greek ‘hagiaza’) means to sanctify, or to revere, or to make and keep holy. It is related to the adjective “hagion” – (holyf. The name of God is honoured in two ways – (1) by divine acts that lead men to acknowledge and reverence Jehovah as God. .(see Ex. 15:14,15; Joshua 2:9-11; 5:1; Ps. 149:4,6,12) and (2) by men honouring Him as God and according Him the worship and obedience that are His due (see Isa. 58:15; Matt. 7:21-23; Acts 10:35 etc). The Jews of OT times had a high sense of the greatness, majesty and holiness of God. They had such a sense of this, that it became their custom not to use the name “Jehovah”. They felt the very name, the very alphabets of the name, as it were, were so holy and sacred, and human being so small and unworthy, that they dare not mention it. They referred to God as the ‘ name” in order to avoid the mention of the actual term Jehovah. So that the “name” here means God Himself, thus it becomes clear that the purpose of the petition is to express this desire that God Himself may be revered, may be sanctified, that the very name of God and all it denotes and represents may be honoured amongst men, and may be holy throughout the world.
The name”, in other words, means all that is true of God and all that have been revealed about Him. It carries all that is God in all His attributes, God in all that He is in, and in Himself, and God „ in all that He has done, and, all that He is doing. God had revealed Himself to the children of Israel under various names. He used a term concerning Himself (El, Elohim, YHWH – pronounced “Ye’wa” a conjectural transliteration of the sacred name by which God instructed Israel to know Him. In consonantal Hebrew the name was written YHWH which occurs 6,823 times in the OT. These four letters (“YHWH”) are commonly known as the “Tetragramaton” and because of the sacredness attached to the name, and the fear of profaning it, and thereby transgressing the second commandment of the Decalogue, the Jews gradually ceased to take the name on their lips. This gradual process took place during the inter-testamental period. The authors of part-exile Bible books – such as Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi used the name “Yahweh” without hesitation in the same way the pre-exile Bible writers had done. In the third century B.C when the first books of the Bible were translated into Greek, the name “Yahweh” was written in Hebrew characters into the Greek manuscripts, as evidenced by the papyrus Fued 266 of Deuteronomy (1st and 2nd Century B.C) and a fragment of the Minor Prophets found in a cave of Nahel Hever. However, in the later Greek Septuagint (LXX) the name of God is regularly rendered as “Kurios” – Lord’. This indicated that in the early Christian centuries, the habit to read uAdonay’ in place of YHWH’ had been firmly established. That this custom was established in the Jewish nation in the first and second centuries AD is indicated by the fact that Christ and His apostles used the word “Lord” where OT writers employed the name “Yahweh” so completely that the term “Yahweh” does not occur at all in the NT.
When the Masorates in the 7th and 8th centuries AD began to add vowels to the consonants of Hebrew manuscripts, they added the vowel to the consonants of the word “YHWH” To this day, the custom has been followed in all Hebrew Bibles, even in those printed and published by non-Jewish publishers. The Jews have always substituted “Adonay” for the name “Yahweh” where this was encountered in the Bible.
Unaware of this Jewish custom, some English translators of the Bible from 12th Century AD onwards, rendered the word “YHWH” with the accompanying vowels of “Adonay” as “Jahovah”, and pronounced it accordingly (see KJV of Ex. 6:3; Ps. 83;18; Isa. 12:2 etc etc). The KJV translators usually rendered YHWH as LORD whenever Adonay is used – consonants and vowels. This custom has been adopted by some other Bible translators e.g. the R.S.V. (To be continued)
