Our Father 8: Magnified and sanctified

The request, “Let your name be sanctified,” is not a petition for personal benefit, nor even for the community of the faithful, but simply because of the intrinsic value of God’s name. His name is worthy of special treatment. But there is also a nuance in which God himself sanctifies his name. Here’s the explanation:

• The appeal is similar to one of the most frequently recited prayers in Judaism: the Kaddish. The Kaddish begins: “Let his name be magnified and sanctified [hallowed] in the world that he created according to his will.”
• The words “magnified and sanctified” (gadal and kaddash) may be linked to Ezekiel 38:23. Both Hebrew verbs are reflexive, indicating (at least in Ezekiel) that the LORD will be the one who sanctifies his name. In the next verse, we see that God will do this by regathering Israel from exile [1].

Incidentally, the word gadal, magnified, aligns well with the Greek word megaluno that we find Miriam/Mary using in Luke 2:46, “My soul magnifies the Lord”. In this case, she is clearly also hallowing/sanctifying God’s name by using a circumlocution, “the Lord,” rather than pronouncing his name.

[1] Eby, Aaron. First Steps in Messianic Jewish Prayer. Marshfield, Missouri: First Fruits of Zion, 2014:108.

Our Father 7: Saying God's name—or not!

In Matthew 6:9, Yeshua (Jesus) honoured a Jewish tradition that was well-established by that time: he avoided pronouncing the name of God altogether, even while offering a petition that the name be sanctified/hallowed. The apostles continued this tradition: In writing the New Testament they could easily have transliterated the Tetragrammaton—the four Hebrew letters spelling God’s personal name—into Greek. Instead, they feared God and followed Yeshua’s example of using circumlocutions like “Father,” “Heaven” or “Lord” in place of God’s name. Christian tradition has continued the practice to this day, which is why we see “the LORD” (in capitals) in place of the holy name throughout the “Old Testament” of Christian Bibles. While the holy name is one of the most common words of the Hebrew scriptures (appearing 6828 times), it does not appear in the New Testament at all.

This should give us reason to regard the use of circumlocutions for God's name as a Christian tradition just as much as it is a Jewish tradition (at least since the close of the Hebrew scriptures). Rabbi Yeshua kept Jewish tradition regarding the avoidance of speaking of God's name, and so did his apostles. So, what should you do?