The Concealed Word in The Lord’s Prayer
Perhaps the Lord intended that we should ponder this text and see a kind of multiple meaning.
Most evangelicals assert that it simply means "daily" and thus avoid a more eschatological meaning concerning the 'nature/essence' of the bread. Surely it is right that we should pray for our worldly food. Likewise we should pray for all that is needed for subsistence, whether just for today or for tomorrow as well.
In Exodus 16:4, the narrative indicates that the Lord had served "le mot du jour" to the Israelites as their food.
Ex 16:4 (NASB)
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day...”
In Biblical Hebrew, there is a play on words here (which is highlighted in bold above). That is, the phrase "דְּבַר־יֹום" is not an adverbial phrase of time (as can be found in the Hebrew text of Ex 5:13 or Ex 5:19, for example), but is an objective phrase in Hebrew. That is, this phrase is the object of the Hebrew verb לָקַט, to gather or pick up. (In
Ex 5:13 or Ex 5:19, "mud bricks" function as the object of the transitive verb לָקַט, and in those verses דְּבַר־יֹום functions as an adverbial phrase of time.) But in Ex 16:4 we read that the Israelites gathered "le mot du jour"
from heaven in order to eat it -- that is, they were eating the DAILY ALLOTMENT of the WORD (of God). We
know that this juxtaposition of meaning is certain because Deut 8:3 says so.
So the manna from heaven was the Daily Word ("Mot du Jour") from heaven. God's word therefore was their
DAILY food.
Today, most scholars reject the translation of epiousios as meaning daily. The word daily only has a weak
connection to any proposed etymologies for epiousios. Moreover, all other New Testament chapter and verse
translations of scripture from their original Greek phrase into "daily" otherwise reference hemeran (ἡμέραν, "the
day"), which does not appear in this usage.
The Amplified Lord’s Prayer
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