The Greek word behind daily appears in two verses of the New Testament. No one knows for certain what it means.
| It may mean | How it has been printed |
|---|---|
| for today | “daily”, in the Berean Standard Bible and the King James Version |
| for tomorrow | “for the coming day”, in the margin of the Revised Version |
| needed to live | “needful”, in the margin of the American Standard Version |
| above all substance | “supersubstantial”, in the Douay-Rheims Bible at Matthew 6:11 |
Tap any word to see the Greek behind it.
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“Daily” is a best guess at a word found almost nowhere else
Most words in this prayer can be checked against many other uses, in the Bible and outside it. cannot. In the New Testament it stands only here and in Luke’s copy of the same prayer. The Didache, a Christian handbook from about the year 100, has it too, again in the Lord’s Prayer.
Origen, a Greek-speaking Bible scholar of the third century
“The word epiousion is not found in any Greek writer whether in philosophy or in common usage, but seems to have been formed by the evangelists.”
О молитве 27, William A. Curtis’s translation
A translator usually learns what a rare word means by seeing how other people used it. Here there is almost no one to compare, so every reading rests on how the word seems to be built and what the sentence seems to need. Abbott-Smith’s lexicon of 1922 sets out the choices and quotes a 1907 commentary that suspected a misunderstood Aramaic phrase or a slip in the Greek.
For today
The English “daily” comes through the Latin quotidianus, which the oldest Latin Bibles used in both Gospels. On this reading the word leans on “this day” in the same line, and asks for one day’s bread at a time.
John Chrysostom, about 390
“He adds, ‘this day,’ that we should not trouble ourselves with thought for the coming day.”
Quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Matthew 6:11
For tomorrow
Greek had a common way of saying “the next day”: , used five times in Acts. Epiousios looks as if it could be built from it. Jerome found a Hebrew Gospel with mahar, “tomorrow”, at this point.
Jerome, about 398
“Give us today tomorrow’s bread; i.e. for the time to come.”
Комментарий на Евангелие от Матфея, quoted in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea on Matthew 6:11
The strongest point against it comes later in the same sermon: Jesus tells his hearers not to worry about tomorrow.
What we need to live
Built instead from Epi и усия, “being”, the word would mean bread for keeping alive. Abbott-Smith gives this as “for subsistence, needful”, and the American Standard Version of 1901 printed “needful” in its margin. Proverbs asks for the same measure.
Bread above all substance
Taken part by part, epi-ousios can also read as “above being”. Jerome’s Latin Bible has supersubstantialem in Matthew and quotidianum in Luke, two Latin words for one Greek word. The Douay-Rheims Bible follows him, with this note at Matthew 6:11.
“It is understood of the bread of life, which we receive in the Blessed Sacrament.”
Douay-Rheims Bible, note on Matthew 6:11
What the churches do with it
The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not choose. Paragraph 2837 holds three readings together: a repeat of “this day”, what is necessary for life, and the Bread of Life in the Eucharist. Martin Luther’s catechism takes it as everything the body needs.
“Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body.”
The rest of the line is not in doubt. Every reading keeps , keeps , and keeps .
Two other lines Bibles word differently
Debts, or trespasses?
Matthew’s word is , “that which is owed, a debt”, here used “of sin as a debt”. Luke’s prayer says “sins” in this line. “Trespasses”, the word many churches say, stands in the verse just after the prayer, and it translates a different Greek word.
Evil, or the evil one?
Греческое слово has the same form whether it means “evil” or “the evil one”, so the grammar cannot decide. The King James Version takes the first and the Berean Standard Bible the second. Abbott-Smith lists this verse under Satan, “the evil one”, and points to a commentator who reads it the other way.
The King James ending, “For thine is the kingdom”, is not in the SBL Greek text or the Berean Standard Bible. The article explains where it came from.