The Lord's Prayer

according to the Ethiopic

Prof. Michael Wingert’s rendition.

Ethiopic can be divided into Classical Ethiopic and Neo-Ethiopic. The former’s endonym is Ge’ez, and the latter’s is Amharic or lisane nigus (the king’s tongue); lingua franca of the Horn of Africa… and perhaps one day all of Africa.

In the eucharistic liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church, the liturgical language is Ge’ez, and the Lord’s Prayer stands alone in chanted form. When simply repeated under one’s breath it is almost always accompanied immediately by the Hail Mary. You can hear the Lord’s Prayer chanted in Ge’ez at the end of each of my solo episodes of the Tewahido Bible Study. Here it is in written form:

አቡነ ዘበሰማያት ይትቀደስ ስምከ ትምጻእ መንግሥትከ ወይኩን ፈቃድከ በከመ በሰማይ ከማሁ በምድር ሲሳየነ ዘለለዕለትነ ሀበነ ዮም ኅድግ ለነ አበሳነ ወጌጋየነ ከመ ንሕነኒ ንኅድግ ለዘአበሰ ለነ። ኢትአብአነ እግዚኦ ውስተ መንሱት አላ አድኅነነ ወባልሐነ እምኵሉ እኩይ እስመ ዚአከ ይእቲ መንግሥት ኃይል ወስብሐት ለዓለመ ዓለም።

abune zebesemayat ytqedes simike timtsai mengistike weykun feqadike bekeme besemay kemahu bemdr seesayene zeleleiletine habene yom hidg lene abesane wegéga’yene keme nihinehee nihdg lezeabese lene eetab’ane igzeeo wste mensut ala adhinene webalhane imkwlu ikuy isme zeeake yiitee mengst hayl wesibhat lealeme alem

our abba, who is in the heavens, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, give us today our daily sustenance, let go of our trespasses and rebellion as we let go (of the trespasses) of the one who has trespassed against us, lead us not into calamity, rather save us and rescue us from all evil, for thine is the kingdom, power, and glory, unto ages of ages

In English, Ge'ez praying Christians should say "Our Abba, who is in heaven" when they say the Lord's Prayer. I will not argue about the singular versus the plural. The Ge’ez here is inconsistent switching from plural to singular. The Biblical Hebrew שמים (shemaym), which is a cognate of the Ge’ez semayat, like elohym is grammatically plural and contextually singular or plural. In the Greek (and English for Abba) of Mark and Romans and Galatians (to list them canonically), or Galatians and Romans and Mark (to list them chronologically in terms of when they were written), God the Father is presented as Abba and Pater to reflect the totality of his reign over the Afroasiatics and the Indo-Europeans.

The rest of the prayer pretty closely follows other translations with the added Semitic synonymous parallelism first in the abesa (trespass) and géga (rebellion), and second in the adhin (save) and the balha (rescue). The ala (but; rather), or alla, here is very interesting. When I first heard it I naïvely mistook it for allah, the ancient Arabian name of God. But in conversation with scholarly brothers who know better, I now believe it to be a loan word from the Old Greek ἀλλά, which even to an untrained eye looks unmistakably similar.

And rather than “evil” alone or “the evil one”, the Ge’ez gives us “all evil”. The bases are covered. And the doxology portion after is here, that some say scribes added later, which the Roman Catholic Church has removed from regular usage but the priest says in the liturgy. And finally we have alem or 3lem which can mean world or age or forever. We have world without end and ages of ages in most translations. The common KJV forever and ever still sounds poetic to me. World of worlds would be more literal. DBH, in the endnotes of his solo-translated New Testament, has a whole schpiel about aeon/eon in this regard (to promote his heresy of apokatastasis; that all must be saved), which is worth reading. Look at the Aramaic above to see the connection of this word in particular in Ge’ez and Syriac.

And for even more connections see friend of the magazine and the show Prof. Michael Wingert’s analysis thereof with another friend of the magazine and the show Dcn. Alemesilasé. I was originally supposed to be in the video but I passed up on the καιρός (kairos; opportune moment) thinking he wanted a chanter and thus connecting them, otherwise I would have received the blessing of over 100k Youtube views. Nevertheless, if these matters tickle your fancy, please consider an education this Summer and beyond in Afroasiatic Orthodox theology at Agora University’s Holy Transfiguration College, where Mike is dean (whose false cognate homophone in Ge’ez, Amharic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic has to do with judgement; as in my grandfather’s name dannew or the more universal daniel).

Glory to God, for all things.