“…hallowed by Thy Name.” That’s the way as a young boy I learnt to recite this part of The Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9 of the King James Bible, but I never thought it more than a statement that my Father God’s name is hallowed or holy.

However, I have recently been using David Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible, which translates the phrase as “May Your Name be kept holy”. It also translates word for word the same in Luke 11:2. This starts to sound to me more a prayer and less like the recitation I have often made it.

David Stern, in his New Testament commentary, notes that the first words of the prayer “Our Father in Heaven” open many Hebrew prayers. “May your Name be kept holy” recalls the first portion of the synagogue prayer known as Kaddish, which says “Magnified and sanctified be his great name throughout the world…”. This prayer guide that Jesus gave his disciples would therefore probably have contained much that was already familiar to them.

God’s Name/Names

So what does it mean to keep “holy” in contemporary English? A quick look at my dictionary… “Keep morally and spiritually perfect; of high moral excellence; set apart; sacred; pure; free from sin.”

The Old Testament is where I look to understand the holiness of God’s name. In Exodus 3:13-15, when Moses wanted to be able to explain to the Israelites the God who had sent him, God gave His unique name: “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" (I am / will be what I am / will be). Also Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (as Clifford Denton intimated last week, this is generally spoken by Jews as Adonai, ‘My Lord’, or Hashem, ‘The Name’, because Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh or YHWH is considered too holy to be spoken by sinful lips).

Other names of God appear when humans give God a name reflecting an aspect of His character, such as in Genesis 16:13, where Hagar named Adonai, El Ro’i (‘God who sees’). This and others tend to be man’s best attempts at naming God - through personal experience of his attributes.

Throughout the scriptures names are rarely just a random combination of sounds. A name conveys the nature and essence of who or what is named. The story of David with Nabal and Abigail in 1 Samuel 25 springs to mind. Nabal means ‘fool’ and Abigail looks to mean ‘father's joy’ / ‘gives joy’ / ‘intelligent, beautiful’. Both become clearly evident as the story unfolds.

Keeping God’s Name Holy

All this is very interesting but how does it lead me to a heartfelt prayer of understanding?

Let’s consider that everything I do, ever, will either honour or dishonour God. When I am walking yoked with our Lord Jesus, yoked to him and learning of him, I will more likely keep God’s name holy. When I stray from our Lord, ignore or re-interpret parts of his teachings that don’t suit me, this shows that I don’t really believe that God is Adonai or El Ro’i ('God of seeing').

Just last night, I read a passage from a novel that shows - in an extreme measure - what happens when we Christians don’t ourselves become the answer to this prayer. It’s from The Auschwitz Escape, a well-researched novel by Joel C Rosenberg. Two young Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz, Jacob and Max, together with most of the camp, are given the day off on Sunday:

This particular Sunday – April 25, 1943 – was no ordinary Sunday. It was Easter, and to Jacob’s astonishment, he watched as no small number of guards and officers and block seniors went to church. In fact, at just before ten that morning, while he and Max were out for a long walk, Jacob was flabbergasted to see Gehard Gruder, Fat Louie, and several others heading to the camp chapel, dressed in their Sunday finest. Soon he could actually hear an organ playing and their torturers singing hymns and reading Scriptures and then ringing the bells when the service was over.

Who were these people? What God were they praying to? How could they beat and slaughter and burn human beings six days a week and then read the Bible and pray on Sundays? Though Jacob hadn’t been raised religious, he certainly hadn’t been raised to hate religious people either. He’d always thought of himself as tolerant not only of Orthodox Jews but also of Catholic and protestant Christians. He’d been taught to respect every man and every faith, but how could he do so now? If this was what it meant to be a Christian, Jacob hoped all Christians would rot in hell, and the sooner the better.

Just like an ambassador to a foreign country whose actions will give his nation either a good or a bad name, so it is with me. If I call myself a Christian and identify with all of Christianity’s good ideals, but when it really matters I live in just the same way as unbelievers, I can add hypocrisy to my misdemeanours and I become just as bad as those who do not believe – in fact, even worse. What sort of God would condone that behaviour?

Therefore, this simple prayer – “Hallowed be Thy Name”, “May your Name be kept holy” - becomes for me a personal prayer that my life today in thought, word and deed will, in every way, convey to all who are watching the excellent, holy, good Name of my Heavenly Father.

Author: John Quinlan