v.9b — “Hallowed Be Your Name”
A Jewish scribe called a sofer would have followed strict guidelines before copying ancient writings. Special bathing, clean garments, and proper pens were all required before the work could begin. Mistakes made along the way could be evaluated and corrected, except when the sofer came across these four. Yod. He. Vav. He. (YHWH) The Tetragrammaton. The name so sacred that observant Jews would not speak it aloud, substituting Adonai (Lord) in its place.
For these four letters, a pen reserved exclusively for this purpose was taken up. If that pen slipped on even one of those characters, the scroll could not be corrected, and it could not be destroyed. It would be given a formal burial called a genizah, because you do not throw away the name of God like a common mistake. You honor it even in its broken form.
Hallowed be your name.
Revelation 4:8 gives us a glimpse of the honor that name is due. The four living creatures surrounding the throne of God, day and night, never cease to say: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (ESV). These are not creatures who have grown accustomed to the presence. Endless proximity to God has not dulled their response. They have been in that throne room since before the foundations of the earth, and they are still going.
In Hebrew culture, which underlies everything Jesus taught, a name is not a label. It is the full expression of a person’s character, authority, and reputation. To hallow the name is to hallow the person. To profane the name is to profane God himself. When God identified himself to Moses at the burning bush, he did not say I am your rescuer or I am your king. He said I AM WHO I AM. The name is the person. The weight is the same.
The verb form here is a command directed at God. Hagiastheto — an aorist imperative. This is not a passive wish or a warm religious sentiment. It is a petition demanding action. And it is the first petition of the model prayer. It’s not provision, protection, or even forgiveness. The first ask is that God’s name be treated with the weight it deserves. That sequencing is intentional, and it is confrontational.
Leviticus 22:32 frames it plainly: “You shall not profane my holy name, that I may be hallowed among the people of Israel.” (ESV). The command works in both directions. Do not profane, and actively participate in the hallowing. Passive non-profaning is not enough. The people of God are called to be instruments of the name’s honor in the world around them.
The Third Commandment in Exodus 20:7 is the negative frame of this same principle. Most men read it as a rule against profanity. It is far broader than that. Using the name without the weight it carries, invoking God’s name in a way that does not align with his character, living in a way that misrepresents him to the watching world, these all fall under the same violation. You can take the name in vain without ever speaking it.
The prayer is structured not as a religious formality but as the architecture of a prayer life that has put God’s agenda first. A.W. Tozer opened the first chapter of The Knowledge of the Holy with a line that has followed every serious reader of that book ever since: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”³ If your perception of God is small, your hallowing will be small. If your hallowing is small, everything that follows in this prayer will be built on a foundation that cannot hold the weight.
God has blessed our family with four amazing children, but there was a time when we thought we were complete with our daughters. I love my girls beyond words, but I also wanted a son to carry on the name. After our youngest daughter was born, my wife and I went through five years of multiple miscarriages until we had nearly given up. We considered adoption, but I was convinced to take it to the Lord and ask for a son. We prayed with the same confidence Abraham had, knowing that God could provide, but content if he didn’t. He not only answered that prayer, he answered it twice. Two sons.
I wanted someone to carry my name forward. I understood in my bones what it meant for a name to continue, to be represented, to mean something in the next generation. God heard that and responded with more than I asked for. Now the question he puts back to me, and to you, is the same one the sofer answered every time he picked up that second pen. How are you carrying mine?
So the question lands on you. Not as a theological exercise but as one of practical living. If the sofer buried a scroll rather than dishonor the name in its written form, what does your daily life say about how you carry it? The name you bear as a follower of Christ is not yours to manage casually. You are either hallowing it or profaning it. There is no neutral ground.
What would it look like today to treat the name of God with the weight the sofer gave it?
Where in your life are you carrying that name carelessly?
Stay on Mission
FOOTNOTES
³ A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 1.
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