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Matthew 6:5–15 · Majority Standard Bible
Still the Sermon on the Mount. He has just finished with almsgiving, and He turns to prayer with the same warning and the same remedy. He goes on:
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you openly.
And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.”
The gist
The most familiar words in Christendom, and three things in them that are not what most people were taught: a word nobody can translate, a tense that has been quietly changed, and an ending that half the world’s Bibles leave out.
Going deeper
A word first about where this entry stops, because it is longer than the passage usually printed. The MSB puts its heading, The Lord’s Prayer, at verse 5 — not at verse 9 — and the next heading does not come until verse 16. The prayer is not a free-standing text in this translation; it is the middle of a paragraph that begins with hypocrisy and ends with forgiveness. Verses 14 and 15 are not an appendix. They are the sentence the whole thing was going towards, and cutting at verse 13 removes it.
The inner room is tameion, and the lexicons give it two senses that sit oddly together: a storeroom — where provisions were kept — and an inner chamber, a secret room. It occurs four times in the New Testament. The place He sends you to pray is the windowless room at the back where the food is kept.
Then verse 7, and the word is a genuine curiosity: battologeō, which occurs once in the New Testament and, so far as the lexicons can tell, almost nowhere else. Thayer canvasses three explanations of it — from a king of Cyrene said to have stammered, from a tediously long-winded poet, and, as he thinks most probable, that it is simply onomatopoeic: a word that sounds like what it describes, bat-bat-bat. The English “babble” is, by accident, an unusually good translation.
Now: what is it forbidding? This verse has been used for centuries against long prayers, set prayers, and repeated prayers — which would be an odd thing to find in an Orthodox devotional, since our services are made of them. St John Chrysostom, who prayed those services, does not read it that way at all.
He defines the fault as asking for the wrong things: “calling frivolousness, here, by the name of ‘vain repetition:’ as when we ask of God things unsuitable, kingdoms, and glory, and to get the better of enemies, and abundance of wealth, and in general what does not at all concern us.”
And he says the opposite of what the verse is usually made to say:
“For perseverance indeed in the same requests is our duty: His word being, ‘continuing instant in prayer.’”
What he does exclude is the mechanical multiplication of clauses: ”He does not however bid us compose a prayer of ten thousand clauses, and so come to Him and merely repeat it.” Length is not the fault. Asking for rubbish, at length, is.
Then the prayer, and two things in it repay attention.
Daily bread. The word is epiousios, and it is one of the genuine unsolved problems of the New Testament. It occurs twice — here and in Luke’s version — and Origen, in the third century, reported that it was not in ordinary use in Greek at all, which has suggested to many that the Evangelists coined it. Thayer canvasses three derivations: from ousia, “substance,” giving bread for our sustenance; from a verb meaning “to be present,” giving bread that is at hand; and — his own preference — from the phrase for the coming day, giving bread for tomorrow.
The commentators have never settled it either, and several of them say so. Ellicott lists four possible meanings and cites Jerome’s Latin coinage panis supersubstantialis. Meyer raises a grammatical objection that has never been answered: a word formed from ousia ought to come out as epousios, not epiousios. The Pulpit Commentary calls that objection “fatal.”
So the most-repeated petition in the Christian world contains an adjective nobody can define. That is worth knowing and not worth being anxious about.
And forgive us our debts. The word is opheilēma — and readers of this book met its cognate three weeks ago, in the eighteen who died at Siloam, whom Luke called not sinners but debtors. Same root.
Here the Byzantine text and the critical text differ in a way the English can carry. Where the critical text reads aphēkamen — “as we have forgiven,” an aorist, a completed act — the Byzantine reads aphiemen, a present: “as we forgive.” The MSB follows the Byzantine and footnotes the other.
It is a small difference and a real one. The critical reading points at something you did. The Byzantine points at something you do — a standing disposition, running now, as you say the words.
And then the doxology, which is the reason this entry exists.
”For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” The Byzantine text, the Greek Orthodox Church text and both editions of the Textus Receptus print it. Nestle, Westcott–Hort and Tischendorf omit it entirely. The MSB prints it in the text and footnotes the omission — the reverse of what most modern Bibles do.
This book prints the Byzantine text, so it prints the doxology. But it will not pretend the question is closed, because it is not, and the commentators are heavily on the other side. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown: it “can hardly be considered part of the original text.” The Expositor’s Greek Testament calls it “a liturgical ending, no part of the original prayer.” The Cambridge Bible: “doubtless an insertion from the liturgy.” Bengel thinks it was added for liturgical use and then “interpolated by transcribers.” Barnes is more careful, saying only that its authenticity is “doubtful.”
And then one sentence, from the Pulpit Commentary, which is arguing against the doxology and lets something slip. It says the words are absent from all the Greek commentators on the Lord’s Prayer — ”except Chrysostom and his followers.”
That is the whole matter in a phrase. The tradition that kept these words is the Greek one; the tradition that dropped them is the Latin. An Orthodox reader is not eccentric for saying them. He is standing exactly where Chrysostom stood. Both the Pulpit Commentary and Bengel also note that the doxology appears in the Didache — while arguing that this proves it liturgical rather than dominical.
Finally, verses 14 and 15, which the MSB’s own paragraphing insists on. Chrysostom’s comment is the most alarming sentence in his homily, and it is not a threat but a description of the mechanism:
“So that the beginning is of us, and we ourselves have control over the judgment that is to be passed upon us.”
And, in Christ’s voice: ”For in whatever way you have judged for yourself, in the same, do I also judge you.”
In the modern world
Most people’s difficulty with prayer is not theological. It is that they suspect they are doing it wrong — too short, too distracted, too repetitive, too much the same words every time.
This passage removes almost every one of those anxieties and replaces them with one real requirement.
Repetition is not the problem. Chrysostom says perseverance in the same requests is a duty. If your prayer is the same words tonight as last night, you are not battologising; you are praying.
Length is not the problem either, in itself. What is excluded is the mechanical — words produced in quantity because quantity is thought to work, which the verse says is what people do who think God is reluctant and needs persuading. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. The whole point of the sentence is that you are not there to inform Him.
Privacy is not really about geography. The storeroom is an image, not an instruction to buy a prayer cupboard. But there is something practical in it: the place He names is unremarkable, functional, and out of sight. Not a chapel. The back room where the food is.
And then the one requirement that this passage does insist on, and that no amount of technique gets round.
You cannot pray this prayer and hold a grudge. Not because God is petty about it, but because — on Chrysostom’s reading — the clause you have just recited is a request to be dealt with on the terms you are currently using on somebody else. Every time it is said, the person praying names his own standard.
Which makes verse 15 the most practical sentence in the passage. Anyone who has recited the Lord’s Prayer this week while carrying something against a particular person has already said the difficult part out loud, whether or not they noticed.
The tidbit
The most-said prayer in the world contains a word that appears twice in the whole of Greek literature as far as anyone can tell, and that Origen said was not in ordinary use even in his own century. Nobody has ever been sure what daily means in give us this day our daily bread, and it has never stopped anyone praying it.
This week
Almost every anxiety people bring to prayer — length, repetition, wording — is dismissed in this passage, and exactly one requirement is left standing, in a clause most of us say without hearing. So the week does not work on technique. It slows the prayer down at the one clause that costs something and makes you say it with a name in mind.
Pray it once a day, out loud, slowly, from this page — including the doxology, which is yours to say.
And each day, at the debts clause, stop. Do not rush it. Name, silently, the one person you are currently not forgiving — and say the clause anyway, knowing exactly what you are asking for.
It might look like this. You reach as we forgive our debtors, and the name that arrives, without being sent for, is your father’s. You do not resolve anything about him and you do not add a clause. You hold the name there and say the words anyway — knowing you have just asked to be dealt with on exactly those terms. Then you go on to the next line.
By about the fourth day one of two things will have happened. Either the name will have changed, or you will have.
Scripture: Matthew 6:5–15, Majority Standard Bible (Byzantine Majority Text). The MSB’s own section heading “The Lord’s Prayer” begins at verse 5, carries the cross-reference “(Luke 11:1–4)”, and the next heading, “Proper Fasting,” falls at verse 16. There is no heading at verse 9. The printed unit is therefore 6:5–15, and this entry prints it whole; the prayer is not excerpted from its paragraph. These verses sit within the single quotation the MSB opens at 5:3 and does not close until 7:27, and the italic setup line stands in for that frame; the single quotation marks around the prayer itself, at verses 9–13, are the MSB’s own. biblehub.com/msb/matthew/6.htm
The doxology at verse 13. The Robinson–Pierpont Byzantine Majority Text, the Greek Orthodox Church text and both editions of the Textus Receptus print hoti sou estin hē basileia kai hē dynamis kai hē doxa eis tous aiōnas. Amēn. Nestle 1904, Westcott–Hort and Tischendorf omit it entirely. The MSB prints it in the text, unbracketed, and footnotes: “CT does not include For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” The public-domain commentators are heavily against its authenticity, and their wordings above are those of Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, the Expositor’s Greek Testament, the Cambridge Bible, Bengel’s Gnomon and Barnes, each as attributed; Ellicott, Benson, Matthew Henry, Poole, the Geneva Study Bible, Meyer and Vincent do not discuss it. The Pulpit Commentary’s remark that the doxology is absent from the Greek commentators “except Chrysostom and his followers” is that commentary’s own, made in the course of arguing against the verse. The Didache is mentioned above only as the Pulpit Commentary and Bengel report it; that text was not consulted directly, and no manuscript sigla are given here, since none could be verified. biblehub.com/text/matthew/6-13.htm biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/6-13.htm
Other text in range. At verse 12 the Byzantine, the Greek Orthodox Church text and both Textus Receptus editions read aphiemen, a present — “as we forgive” — where Nestle, Westcott–Hort and Tischendorf read aphēkamen, an aorist, “as we have forgiven”; the MSB follows the Byzantine and footnotes the other. At verse 6 the Byzantine adds en tō phanerō, “openly,” which the critical editions lack; the MSB prints it. At verse 15 the MSB footnotes that NA and SBL omit “their trespasses.” biblehub.com/text/matthew/6-12.htm biblehub.com/text/matthew/6-6.htm
Greek, as printed in the lexical pages. At verse 6 “inner room” is tameion (Strong’s 5009), which Thayer gives both as “a storechamber, storeroom” and as “a chamber, especially an inner chamber; a secret room,” with four New Testament occurrences. At verse 7 “babble on” is battologeō (945), a New Testament hapax legomenon; Thayer canvasses three derivations — from Battus of Cyrene, said to have stammered; from a long-winded poet of the same name; and, as most probable, an onomatopoetic formation. At verse 11 “daily” is epiousios (1967), with two New Testament occurrences, this verse and Luke 11:3; Thayer records Origen’s testimony that the word was not in ordinary use, and canvasses three derivations, preferring the one that yields “bread for the coming day.” At verse 12 “debts” is opheilēma (3783), from opheilō — the same root as the opheiletai, “debtors,” of Luke 13:4, printed in this volume at Week 12. biblehub.com/greek/5009.htm biblehub.com/greek/945.htm biblehub.com/greek/1967.htm biblehub.com/greek/3783.htm
On epiousios the commentators are unresolved, and the readings reported above are those of Ellicott (four possible senses, citing Jerome’s panis supersubstantialis and Origen), Benson, Meyer (who objects that a derivation from ousia should yield epousios), the Expositor’s Greek Testament, the Cambridge Bible, Bengel, the Pulpit Commentary (which calls Meyer’s objection “fatal”), Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (“critics are divided”) and Gill. No attempt is made above to settle the question. biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/6-11.htm
St John Chrysostom, Homily 19 on Matthew. Public domain (NPNF Series 1, Vol. 10). Its printed lemma is “Matt. VI. 1,” and the boundary is clean at both ends — Homily 18 is lemma’d at Matthew 5:38 and Homily 20 at Matthew 6:16 — so Homily 19 covers this whole passage. All quotations attributed to him above are from it. The scriptural phrase he quotes as “continuing instant in prayer” is his own citation, not this book’s. www.newadvent.org/fathers/200119.htm
No claim is made above about Jewish prayer practice, the hours of prayer, synagogue custom, or any Aramaic wording behind the prayer; none of this could be sourced from the material consulted beyond what is attributed to named commentators. The one exception is Jerome’s report of the word mahar, “tomorrow,” in the Hebrew Gospel, which is mentioned by Meyer, the Expositor’s Greek Testament and Gill, and is not asserted here on its own account.
Fifty-one more like it
If one week changed how you read that passage, Follow Me has fifty-one others, each given the same treatment.