Most of us say it as a compliment to God. Jesus taught it as a request, asking the Father to show His name holy in a world that had watched it dragged through the mud.
The hallowed be thy name meaning is bolder than most of us were taught. It is a request that God would act to show His name holy, so people see who He really is.
The Greek is a command form addressed to God, not a description of Him. It asks the Father to vindicate His own reputation, and it enlists us in the answer.
This is the opening petition of the prayer Jesus taught. For the whole prayer, start with what the Lord's Prayer is. Here we stay on one line.
Hagiazō, built on hagios, holy. Lexicons give to sanctify, to make holy, to consecrate, to set apart.
Aorist passive imperative, third person singular. A request in command form: let it be made holy.
The passive leaves the actor unnamed. In a prayer addressed to the Father, He is the one being asked.
Most of us learned this line as if it said, God, your name is holy. That is true, and saying it is good worship. It just is not what the sentence says.
The word is an imperative. English only gives commands to the person in front of us. Greek also has a third person imperative that works like let it be. So the line reads, Father, let your name be made holy. You can check the parsing word by word yourself.
It is also passive. Many interpreters call this a divine passive, a Jewish way of describing God's action without saying His name. We think that is right here. The prayer is spoken to the Father, so He is the first one asked to hallow the name.
One correction while we are in the grammar. The aorist does not mean once for all, whatever the sermon said. In a command it simply presents the action as a whole. Good preaching point, no support in the Greek.
In the ancient world a name carried a person's character and standing. We still talk this way when we say a scandal ruined someone's good name. So when Scripture speaks of God's name, it means who God has shown Himself to be. The name itself has its own studies in what God's name is and what Yahweh means.
At the burning bush God answers Moses with I am who I am, a name of presence and faithfulness.
God proclaims His name as character: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
In exile, God's people carry His reputation into foreign nations, and it travels badly.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world” (ESV).
Read those in a row and the pattern is plain. God's name is tied to God's people, and what they do either shows Him truly or misrepresents Him. The negative side has its own study in taking the Lord's name in vain, which was never mainly about swearing.
The language of this prayer comes from Ezekiel 36, where God says plainly that He will sanctify His name. Ezekiel is speaking to exiles in Babylon.
“It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.”
Ezekiel 36:22 to 23 · NIVNotice what profaned the name. Not bad language. The nations looked at the exiles and said, “These are the Lord's people, and yet they had to leave his land” (36:20). Their condition and conduct made God look small or cruel.
Now notice what God does about it. He does not defend His honor by destroying the people who damaged it. Verses 25 to 27 promise cleansing, a new heart and His own Spirit within them. He is proved holy through you. The people who dragged the name down become the place it is lifted up.
The Hebrew verb in verse 23, qiddashti, I will sanctify, shares its root with qadosh, holy. Those promises land in the new covenant, and Acts 2 is what it looked like when the Spirit was poured out.
God hallows His name by keeping His word to people who did not deserve it. He protects His reputation through mercy, and through the very people who damaged it.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Jesus was a Jew teaching Jews, and the closest parallel to this line sits in one of Judaism's best known prayers. In the translation Chabad gives, the Kaddish opens, “May His great name be magnified and sanctified”, then asks, “And may His Kingdom be established,” and, “May it happen in your lifetime.”
Different languages, the same holy root and the same request.
Both move straight from the name to the Kingdom. God's reign is how His name is shown.
The Kaddish asks for it in the days of those praying. Jesus said the Kingdom had come near, and meant His own generation.
The Kaddish speaks about God. Jesus has His disciples speak to Him as Father. That shift is the new thing.
A caution, because sermons overreach here. The Kaddish's response line is quoted in the Talmud, full texts appear in medieval prayer books, and scholars debate how old its core wording is. Jewish teachers tie its opening to Ezekiel 38:23: “Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself” (NKJV). So nobody should tell you Jesus quoted the Kaddish. He and the Kaddish drink from the same well, and the well is Ezekiel.
In John 12, days before the cross, Jesus prays the same prayer in different words.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12:27 to 28 · NIVGlorify and hallow are close cousins. The Father answers out loud, and Jesus explains how: when He is lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself (12:32). The name is hallowed at the cross. In John 17 He reports back: “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known” (17:26, ESV).
A line of praise. We tell God His name is holy, then move on to the requests that matter.
The first request. Father, show Your name holy. In Jesus the Father did exactly that.
At Sound of Heaven we read this line as a request God has answered and keeps answering. Jesus is the final and perfect revelation of the Father. When people watched Him heal, forgive, eat with sinners and pray for the men crucifying Him, they were watching God's name hallowed.
So God's name is profaned whenever God is presented as something Jesus is not. When His name is attached to cruelty, contempt or fear used to control people, it is being dragged through the mud, whatever religious language surrounds it. Scripture records people acting in God's name in ways Jesus later corrected, which is why we read every page through Him.
It cuts the other way too. Holiness is not a niceness that makes God harmless. It is fierce toward whatever destroys people. Jesus turned over tables.
The strongest other reading says the passive mainly means us: we hallow the name by worship and obedience. We are included. We put the Father first because the grammar puts Him first.
What does the Greek form of hallowed in Matthew 6:9 tell us?
Hagiasthētō is an aorist passive imperative. It asks for something to happen to God's name, and in a prayer to the Father, He is the first one asked to do it.
If God hallows His name by showing the world what He is like, praying this line means asking to be part of the answer.
The line is spoken to Our Father, the closeness we look at in the Abba Father meaning. Awe and intimacy belong in one sentence.
The exiles profaned the name by how their lives looked to the neighbors. The reverse is also true. Honesty at work and patience at home hallow the name in Deer Park and Commack louder than any sermon. That is holiness in ordinary clothes.
The passive is a relief. You are not rescuing God's reputation by effort. The Spirit is still healing and restoring people today, the same Spirit doing the work of sanctification in us, and every time He does, the name is shown holy.
Some people reading this were hurt by someone who invoked God while doing it. That was not God's name being honored. It was God's name being profaned, and Ezekiel would call it exactly that. Naming it honestly is agreeing with God about His own name. If you want someone to pray with you, send us a prayer request.
Hallowed be thy name is the first thing Jesus taught His friends to ask for. Let Your name be shown holy. Let people see You as You really are.
The Father answered in His Son. At the cross the name was glorified, in the resurrection it was vindicated, and in a Spirit filled church it keeps being made known. The Kingdom is here, and this line is how we pray from inside it. So pray it this week as an offer: do again what You did in Jesus, and do it through me.
For related reading, see what the Kingdom of God is, what the fear of God means and the power in the name of Jesus, or come pray it with us on a Sunday.
Hallowed be thy name asks the Father to show His name holy, a request Ezekiel promised, the Kaddish echoed and Jesus answered with His life.
If this line of the prayer stirred something up, send it to us. Somebody at Sound of Heaven will pray with you.
It means, let your name be made holy. The Greek word hagiasthētō is an aorist passive imperative, a request rather than a statement. Jesus teaches His disciples to ask the Father to show His name, meaning His revealed character, for what it truly is. The line echoes Ezekiel 36, where God promises to show the holiness of His great name. It includes our reverence, but it starts with God acting.
It is a request. Many people say it as praise, telling God His name is holy, and that is a good thing to say. But the grammar is an imperative, like the requests that follow for the Kingdom and God's will. Jesus puts it first, so the first thing His disciples ask for is God's reputation, ahead of bread, forgiveness or protection.
In Scripture a name stands for a person's character and reputation. When God proclaims His name to Moses in Exodus 34, He describes Himself as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. God's name is who He has shown Himself to be. That is why His people could profane it by how they lived, and why Jesus could say He had manifested it.
The Kaddish, a central Jewish prayer, opens by asking that God's great name be magnified and sanctified, then asks that His Kingdom be established in the lifetime of those praying. The Lord's Prayer moves the same way, from the name to the Kingdom. Both draw on Ezekiel. Scholars debate how old the Kaddish's exact wording is, so we should not claim Jesus quoted it.
We start by asking God to do it, because the prayer puts Him first. Then we live in a way that shows His character truly: honest, merciful, patient and generous. Ezekiel shows God's people could profane His name by how their lives looked to others, and the reverse is also true. We refuse to attach His name to cruelty, and we make room for the Spirit.