Hallowing God’s Name
In Matthew 6:9 Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” What exactly does that mean and who exactly is doing the hallowing? Part of the mystery has to do with the fact that the term “to hallow” is a bit obsolete even though it’s favored by virtually all English translations. Hallowed is simply an old-fashioned King James kind of word that means consecrated or set apart as holy.
Our real interest, of course, is in the Greek word that stands behind the English translation. The Greek verb ἁγιάζω (hagiázō) means to honor, sanctify, set apart, make holy. A spruced-up translation of verse 9 is “Our Father in Heaven, sanctified be your name.” But still, what does that mean? We are so familiar with this verse (even without “hallowed”) few of us pause to think about what Jesus is actually saying. How can God’s name be sanctified anymore than it already is?
People tend to offer pious but somewhat generic answers to this question stressing our need to honor God and show him the respect and reverence that he is due. That’s important, of course, but that’s not what’s going on here. Jesus said “sanctified be your name” – the passive form of the imperative (ἁγιασθήτω, hagiasthētō) indicates that God is the subject of the verb. Jesus’ petition has to do with God’s actions, not ours. In other words, Jesus is teaching his disciples to petition God to sanctify his own name.
Well, so what does that mean? Is Jesus simply expressing some nebulous desire that God make his name recognized as sacred throughout the earth?
Not at all. Once we discover the Jewish background of Jesus’ words, it’s clear that his petition is very much grounded in a specific context – nothing less than the eschatological restoration of Israel! To begin with, as biblical scholars are already well aware, Jesus’ reference to the sanctifying of God’s name is drawn straight from Ezekiel 36 – an end-times prophecy in which the Lord vows to sanctify his name by gathering the scattered twelve tribes of Israel from exile and restoring them to the Promised Land. Israel had profaned and desecrated God’s name among the nations by giving them the impression that He has abandoned his people and that he is unable or unwilling to fulfill his covenant obligations.
I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; in accordance with their conduct and their deeds I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that it was said of them, “These are the people of the Lord, yet they had to go out of his land.” (Ezek. 36:19-20)
The nations have drawn false conclusions about God’s character as a result of Israel’s exile from the land. Israel had polluted and defiled the land so God ejected Israel from the land just as he had ejected the Canaanites before them. But it’s God’s reputation, not Israel’s, that is getting dragged through the mud. Israel’s deportation has led the nations to believe that the God of Israel is unfaithful and incapable of insuring that the people of Israel dwell safely in the land of Israel and that fact has defiled and desecrated God’s name.
The nations, of course, are wrong.
God will vindicate his holy name and reverse that desecration. He will sanctify His name—he will hallow His name again, by inaugurating a new exodus in the end-times and gathering the purified people of Israel from exile and restoring them to the Promised Land:
Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezek. 36: 22-28)
It is no coincidence that the Lord’s Prayer and the Jewish prayer called the Kaddish are strikingly similar. Both are eschatological prayers. Kaddish means “sanctification” and the prayer’s central theme has to do with the sanctification of God’s name:
Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray “sanctified be your name” he was teaching them to pray for the fulfillment of Ezekiel 36. He was teaching them to petition God to sanctify his name by beginning the eschatological restoration of Israel from exile now. The prophetic background of Jesus’ words are clear and yet many simply disregard or ignore their concrete implications: believers should pray that the God sanctify his name by the restoration of Israel to the Promised Land.