![]() ![]() 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.įor 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. Jewish believers (quoted by Eusebius in HE 6.26.4) Later an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it in Hebrew for Origen of Alexandria (one of the top Hebrew scholars of his time):įirst to be written was by Matthew, who was once a tax collector but Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own 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: ![]() 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). This is again an aorist imperative in the Greek, same basic idea. (textkit has a helpful discussion of Greek aorist imperative here) Of the options provided in the OP, A1 most closely aligns with the Greek text. The aorist tense of this verb indicates a one-time action but does not indicate that the action is complete. 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). 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: The verb here is Ἐλθέτω (elthetō), meaning "to come", and it is in the imperative form (think "commanding" something). 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:įunny 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. So the English translation is an improvement, in my humble opinion! The Latin is more of a mouthful, is less metrical and doesn't rhyme as well: "Fiat voluntas tua". Indicative would just be 'thy will is done' and conditional would be ' thy will would/might be done'. ![]() The same is at work in 'Thy will be done.', which is subjunctive again. 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.īTW I have no expertise in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, but have no particular reason to doubt what previous posters have said about it. 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 ![]() 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. 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. 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. 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.". 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? If it were a simple statement it would just be 'thy kingdom comes', and here we're praying 'We pray that thy kingdom comes'. 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. ![]()
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