What Does Luke 11:3 Mean?
Give us day by day our bread for what is coming.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Give us day by day our daily bread.THE KEY
Here, daily need is voiced as shared dependence: bread is asked for as a gift, one day at a time.
THE MEANING
Your need is spoken in a shared voice: “us” and “our” make daily provision something held in common. The request is for bread to be given day by day, keeping the need and its provision in the rhythm of the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that needing ordinary provision is a personal failure: the prayer makes that need shared.
THE ROOT
δός
dos
GROWS FROM
δο- (*do-), in δίδωμι (didōmi)
to give, grant
The request begins with δός (dos, “give”), from δίδωμι (didōmi, “to give”), whose word family also names giving and gifts. The bread appears within a relation of receiving, so daily nourishment is asked for as something given.
ALSO GROWS
dosis: giving; gift
δόσις
The request names an act of giving, linking the bread to the ongoing provision it represents.
dōron: gift; offering
δῶρον
This branch names what is given: the bread is received as provision, not claimed as something already secured.
ἐπιούσιον
epiousion
GROWS FROM
ἐπιούσιος
Possibly bread for the coming day, or bread needed for subsistence.
“bread for what is coming” in this verse is epiousion. The word translated “daily” is rare, and its derivation is uncertain. Luke also says “day by day,” making the prayer’s recurring rhythm clear even while the word’s deeper shade remains open.
ALSO GROWS
epiousa: coming; following, as in the coming day
ἐπιοῦσα
One proposed connection points toward bread for the day that is coming.
ousia: being; substance or means
οὐσία
Another proposed connection points toward bread necessary for subsistence.
THE PATTERN
Provision is received in its season, meeting need and sustaining life.
Then the LORD said to Moses, Look, I will rain bread for you from the heavens. The people shall go out and gather each day's portion on its day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my instruction or not.All of them look to you, to give them their food in its time.Now the one who supplies seed to the sower supplies bread for eating, and fills out your sown seed, and makes grow the fruits of your alignment.THE THREAD
Then Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses did not give you that bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.The Greek verb δίδωμι (didōmi, “to give”) links this verse’s request with John’s naming of the Father as giver of bread. The daily request opens toward a wider question: what is the source of the bread that sustains life?
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