The Lord’s Prayer is undeniably beautiful, undeniably significant, and surprisingly difficult to deal with on a variety of fronts.

Here’s one problem: what in the world to do with 3rd person imperatives?

To put a fine point on the difficulty, consider 3 Greek versions of the prayer from across the span of history. That will lead us into the main ways translators have dealt with it.

For reference sake, let’s agree that we’re primarily talking about the version in Matthew 6 here, but the version in Luke 11 has all the same difficulties attached to it.

The original Lord’s Prayer

By way of refresher, here is the text of the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as they stand in Matthew 6.9-10:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·

                ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

                ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·

                γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου,

                ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς·

If you can consider this Greek text without something sounding very much like the King James Version running through your mind, I’m impressed.

Key point: all three of these petitions are formed with 3rd person imperatives. 3rd person imperatives are imperatives. They carry the same basic force and possible functions as 2nd person imperatives. They are just much more complicated because we don’t have them in English (or any other language I know).

The 2nd generation Lord’s Prayer

Compare that original with Bambas’ translation into Katharevousa (the literary and archaizing version of Modern Greek) in the mid-1850s, Η Αγία Γραφή (Παλαιά και Καινή Διαθήκη) στη μετάφραση Νεόφυτου Βάμβα (MNB). By the 1800s, we have a long history of using and interpreting the Lord’s Prayer in the Greek world. We see that he avails himself of not doing any translating at all:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·

ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς

It’s as though, for this portion of the prayer, someone hit the ‘pause’ button on language development for 1800 years.

Whilst there are some accommodations to changes in Greek syntax and vocabulary later in the prayer, the part of interest is identical. I’d be curious to know how Greek readers of that era understood what these commands were indicating.

Speaking far beyond my secure knowledge base at this point, but the Katharevousa grammar I have from the early 1900s doesn’t even mention a 3rd person imperative form as existing.[1] I suppose this stretch of the Lord’s Prayer would have been quite archaic even in the 1850s.

What did people understand they were petitioning for? And who did they see as the target of the force of the imperative?

The 3rd generation Lord’s Prayer

Unlike the punt translation which Bambas avails himself of, Spiros Philos has to deal with the formal mismatch in Greek imperatives in his Modern Greek translation from the 1990s (with updates into the 2000s): H Αγία Γραφή στη Δημοτική (Filos Pergamos). Here’s his take on it:

Πατέρα μας, που είσαι στους ουρανούς,

ας αγιαστεί το όνομά σου·

ας έρθει η βασιλεία σου·

ας γίνει το θέλημά σου, όπως στον ουρανό, έτσι και επάνω στη γη·

The verb here is a combination of the particle ας used with a non-past perfective aspect verb form (the ‘dependent’) to form a perfective aspect subjunctive.

Here’s an example sentence of its normal function:

Ας του μιλήσει για το θέμα αυτό η ίδια = “Let her speak to him (on this occasion) about this topic herself”

The subjunctive covers a rather broad range of ideas having to do with a desired reality: it presents them as “wished for, desired, requested, ordered, conceded, allowed etc., on the part of the speaker in direct speech.”[2]

My facility with Modern Greek is at such a low level that I have nothing to add beyond this observation: it appears that this Modern Greek translation avails itself of the same basic strategy as most English translations—a wish/command that more or less refers to God as the one who is able to fill it (without actually saying that).

It does not make clear just who it is that is supposed to carry out the command.

And the 2 main strategies of translation on the market

The development of this prayer passage in Greek maps out the basic trajectory other language versions have also followed in handling it.

There are two main options:

  1. Use a subjunctive-like form, either cued with a “let/may” or just left implied as in “Thy kingdom come,” expressing the wish/desire of the speaker; or
  2. Turn the petitions into 2nd person imperatives directed toward God.

English Bibles by in large follow the same basic strategy: path 1. This is basically unchanged since the venerable Wycliffe translation:[3]

And thus ye shall pray, Our Father that art in heavens, hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come to; be thy will done in earth as it is in heaven;

Some use “Let,” some use “May” to signal that it is a desire which the speaker is conveying to God.

A few modern translations take Path 2.

In English, Eugene Peterson’s The Message transforms the first three petitions into direct commands to God:

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
    as above, so below.

The German translation, Die Gute Nachricht Bibel, follows this same strategy:

9 So sollt ihr beten: Unser Vater im Himmel! Mach deinen Namen groß in der Welt. 10 Komm und richte deine Herrschaft auf. Verschaff deinem Willen Geltung, auf der Erde genauso wie im Himmel.

And we could go on and on. But the point is well established. There are basically 2 translation possibilities on the market today for the first 3 petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: (1) use some sort of subjunctive idea of generic “let/may this happen” with the most likely referent understood as God, or (2) resolve them into 2nd person imperatives prayed towards God like the 2nd set of 3 petitions.

Where we’re going

I’m going to argue that both these approaches, while defensible, shortchange the prayer. I think the 3rd person imperatives we find in the original are a significant part of the prayer. That is, the fact that they are 3rd person imperatives is significant for understanding them and the force of the Lord’s Prayer.

I’ll make that argument in the next post.

[1] ΑΧΙΛΛΕΑΣ ΤΖΑΡΤΖΑΝΟΣ, Grammatiki tis Neas ellinikis glossis (tis aplis katharevousis) ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΝΕΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΓΛΩΣΣΗΣ (ΤΗΣ ΑΠΛΗΣ ΚΑΘΑΡΕΥΟΥΣΗΣ) (Ekdotikos ikos Dimitrakou A.E., 1930), http://e-library.iep.edu.gr/iep/collection/browse/item.html?code=01-18532&tab=01.

[2] David Holton, Peter Mackridge, and Irene Philippaki-Warburton, Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language, Routledge Grammars (London: Routledge, 1997), 205. On the form, see 220-21.

[3] Wycliffe is the first translation from Greek. In all likelihood, he just followed the William Tyndale’s translation at this point. That is from Latin. There are various Middle English translations, also from Latin, that you can find here Regional versions of Lord’s Prayer if interested.