What Does Matthew 6:10 Mean?
Let your governance come. Let your will be done on the ground, as it is in heaven.
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
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.THE KEY
“Thy will be done” names earth as the place where heaven’s governance comes into being.
THE MEANING
This prayer holds earth within the reach of God’s governance. It asks that what God wills come into being in the life the reader inhabits now. Heaven and earth remain distinct, yet the same will is named for both.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that God’s governance belongs only to a distant heaven, beyond ordinary earthly life.
THE ROOT
βασιλεία
basileia
GROWS FROM
βασιλευ-
basileu-
Kingship, royal rule; the exercise of a king’s authority.
“Let your governance come” in this verse is basileia. English “kingdom” can sound like a place; βασιλεία (basileia, kingship or royal rule) can name the reigning authority itself. The prayer asks that this governance arrive on earth, bringing the word’s active force into view.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: king
βασιλεύς
The governance is tied to the authority of the one who reigns.
basileuō: to reign, to rule as king
βασιλεύω
This verb makes the force of βασιλεία (basileia, kingship or royal rule) active: a reign that can arrive.
γενηθήτω
genēthētō
GROWS FROM
γιν- (gin-), with γεν- (gen-) forms
Become, happen, come into being.
“Let your will be done” in this verse is genēthētō. English “done” carries completion, while γενηθήτω (genēthētō, let it come to pass) adds the force of becoming. The prayer joins divine intention with a reality that takes form on earth.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: birth, origin
γένεσις
This related word carries the sense of coming into being, illuminating the prayer’s request for the will to take form.
genos: kind, family, offspring
γένος
The same word family links coming into being with what takes form as a kind or lineage.
THE PATTERN
What belongs to God’s will in the heavens is asked to take visible form in the created world.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.The LORD sets his throne firm in the heavens, and his governance rules over all.And I, John, see the set-apart city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride arranged for her husband.THE THREAD
And he went a little farther, and fell upon his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.Matthew 6:10 uses θέλημα (thelēma, will); Matthew 26:39 uses the related θέλω (thelō, to will or desire). The prayer’s request becomes concrete when a human desire stands beside the Father’s desire in the face of the cup.
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