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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Luke 11:3 - 11:3
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Daily bread (τὸν ἄρτον τὸν ἐπιούσιον)
Great differences of opinion exist among commentators as to the strict meaning of the word rendered daily. The principal explanations are the following:
1. From ἐπιέναι, to come on. Hence,
a. The coming, or to-morrow's bread.
b. Daily: regarding the days in their future succession.
c. Continual.
d. Yet to come, applied to Christ, the Bread of life, who is to come hereafter.
2. From ἐπί and οὐσία, being. Hence,
a. For our sustenance (physical), and so necessary.
b. For our essential life (spiritual).
c. Above all being, hence pre-eminent, excellent.
d. Abundant.
It would be profitless to the English reader to go into the discussion. A scholar is quoted as saying that the term is “the rack of theologians and grammarians.” A satisfactory discussion must assume the reader's knowledge of Greek. Those who are interested in the question will find it treated by Tholuck (“Sermon on the Mount”), and also very exhaustively by Bishop Lightfoot (“On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament”). The latter adopts the derivation from ἐπιέναι, to come on, and concludes by saying, “the familiar rendering, daily, which has prevailed uninterruptedly in the Western Church from the beginning, is a fairly adequate representation of the original; nor, indeed, does the English language furnish any one word which would answer the purpose so well.” The rendering in the margin of Rev. is, our bread for the coming day. It is objected to this that it contradicts the Lord's precept in Mat 6:34 :, not to be anxious for the morrow. But the word does not necessarily mean the morrow. “If the prayer were said in the evening, no doubt it would mean the following day; but supposing it to be used before dawn, it would designate the day then breaking” (the coming day). “And further, if the command not to be anxious is tantamount to a prohibition against prayer for the object about which we are forbidden to be anxious, then not only must we not pray for to-morrow's food, but we must not pray for food at all; since the Lord bids us (Mat 6:25) not to be anxious for our life” (Lightfoot, condensed).