The Plough Music Series is a regular selection of music intended to lift the heart to God. It is not a playlist of background music: each installment focuses on a single piece worth pausing to enjoy.
The Lord’s Prayer, Thomas Aquinas once wrote, is “the most perfect prayer that we can say.” This week’s Plough Music selection is that prayer sung in Aramaic, the language spoken in Israel during Jesus’ lifetime and likely the language he and his disciples used in everyday speech. Because the Gospels were written in Greek, this is a translation back into Aramaic as used by the Syriac Orthodox Church in its liturgy.
Abun dbašmayo
Nethqadaš šmokh
Tithe malkuthokh
Nehwe sebyonokh
Aykano dbašmayo oph bar`o
Hab lan laħmo dsunqonan yowmono
Wašbuq lan ħawbayn waħtohayn
Aykano doph ħnan šbaqan lħayobayn
Lo ta`lan lnesyuno
Elo paşo lan men bišo
Meţul ddilokh hi malkutho
Wħaylo wtešbuħto
L`olam `olmin
Amin
Our Father
which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever.
Amen.
This spare yet exquisite recording is by French-Romanian singer Esther Lamandier on her 1989 album Chants Chrétiens Araméens.