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The Jesus Prayer and Tolkien
The fifth in the series on the Jesus Prayer, usually called the Lord’s Prayer. We consider what Jesus meant by what is usually translated “thy kingdom come.” Here we see considerable differences if one sees Jesus as a political revolutionary, a moral teacher but not divine, or as the Son of God revealing truth from the Father. The reference to the kingdom in this prayer opens the door to some of the most significant aspects and questions of Christianity and Judaism. A suggestion here is that these three words unlock the primary story told throughout the Bible.
Translation from the Aramaic
Jesus spoke in Aramaic, a Syriac language closely related to Hebrew and now spoken by about only a half million or up to a million in different variants. We are relying on this guide to closely examine the Aramaic words likely used by Jesus to help decipher the prayer’s meaning as understood by those to whom Jesus taught it.
The first part is the Aramaic word for “to come.” This raises a similar question when we dealt with the holy name of the Father. Did Jesus teach that we are to ask that his name be kept holy or was he telling his followers to recognize the fact that the Name of God is holy, hallowed, set apart? Here, “to come” could be a statement that the kingdom of God will come or it could express a wish that his kingdom would come. We typically understand it as a request but the translator here seems to prefer a statement of fact: the kingdom will come.
It is surprising that the Aramaic properly translated appears to say literally “the kingdom, she will come.” She? Yes, because the Aramaic word for kingdom is feminine. This raises all sorts of interesting questions about the relationship between the kingdom and the king. It helps highlight some of the great difficulties we have in understanding the very nature of kingdoms, which we will discuss below. But it may also provide a helpful connection to the idea of the kingdom of God and what the New Testament refers to as the church — the collection of believers referred to as the “bride” of Christ.
But, this is made less clear by the translation of “thy kingdom.” The translator notes that it is properly translated as “your kingdom” not “the kingdom” because the last character referring to kingdom is masculine. This…
