- Name 56 of 70Our Father
- HebrewAvinu
- In plain wordsGod who claims His people as His own children, even when others will not
- Where to find itIsaiah 63:16 and 64:8, a prayer from a ruined land
Our Father is a name for God that most people know from the Lord's Prayer, but it was prayed centuries earlier, in Isaiah 63:16 and 64:8. In Hebrew it is Avinu. God's people spoke it at one of their lowest points, when they felt that even their own ancestors would not claim them. Their answer was simple: God still would.
A prayer prayed from the ruins
Isaiah 63 and 64 are one long prayer in the voice of God's people. The land is in bad shape. The prayer says our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary
, and later that the temple is burned up with fire
. Adversaries are enemies, and the sanctuary is God's holy house.
The prayer starts by remembering better days. God had been their Savior. He had carried them through the sea in the time of Moses. Then it turns painfully honest. The people admit that they rebelled and vexed, or grieved, His holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:10). They ask Him to look down from heaven and wonder aloud whether His mercy toward them has been held back.
Then comes the line this name is built on.
Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.
Isaiah 63:16
Doubtless means "surely." Abraham was the father of the nation, and Israel here means Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. The people are saying: if our great ancestors could see us now, they might look away in shame. But You are still our Father. They say it twice in one verse, as if holding on with both hands.
What Avinu means
Av is the everyday Hebrew word for father. It can mean a person's own dad, a grandfather or ancestor, or someone who acts like a father to others. Add the ending -inu, which means "our," and you get Avinu, "our Father."
In Bible times, a father gave a child a name, a place in the family and an inheritance (what a child receives from a parent). He was also expected to protect his family. If a family member fell into debt or danger, it was the nearest relatives who stepped in to buy them back. That is why Isaiah 63:16 pairs Father with redeemer. A redeemer is someone who pays to set a person free.
The verse ends with thy name is from everlasting
. Everlasting means without beginning or end. The people were leaning on that. Their failure was recent. God's name, His character, was older than all of it.
Key KJV verses about God as Father
The prayer returns to the name in the next chapter, this time with a picture from a potter's workshop.
But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Isaiah 64:8
The people are not arguing that they are good. They are reminding God that they belong to Him. A father does not forget his children, and a potter does not forget the clay on his wheel.
The name is not common in the Old Testament, but it is not alone either. Moses asked Israel a pointed question:
Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
Deuteronomy 32:6
To requite means to pay back. Moses was asking how they could treat their Father so poorly after all He had done.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
Psalm 103:13
To pity here means to feel tender compassion. A good father aches when his child hurts. David says God is like that.
They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
Jeremiah 31:9
Supplications are humble, heartfelt prayers. God promises to lead His crying children home on a smooth path, because He is their Father.
A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Malachi 1:6
Here God Himself uses the name, and there is hurt in His voice. The priests who served Him were treating Him carelessly. If He is a Father, He asks, where is the honor a son would show? The name goes both ways. It brings comfort, and it also asks for respect.
Centuries later, Jesus taught His followers to open their prayers with this same idea: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name
(Matthew 6:9). What Isaiah's people prayed in a desperate hour, He made the first words of everyday prayer.
What Our Father means for you today
There may come a day when you run out of arguments. You look at your choices and cannot think of a single reason God would want you. People who once claimed you may have stopped. Isaiah 63:16 gives you words for that day. You do not have to say "I deserve it." You can say, "You are still my Father." That is an appeal to His goodness, not yours.
Jesus told a story that sounds like an answer to Isaiah 63. A son wasted everything he had and came home in rags, hoping to be hired as a servant. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him
. The son never got to finish his speech. If you feel a long way off, that is the kind of Father you are walking back toward.
For some, the word father hurts. Maybe your dad was absent, or harsh, or worse. That pain is real, and it is fine to take time with it. It may help to remember that God is not a copy of your father. Every earthly father was meant to be a small picture of Him, and some pictures came out badly. A pastor or Christian counselor can walk with you as you learn what a good Father is like.
If you are a parent, this name is a quiet calling. Your children will form their first ideas about God partly by watching you.
- Read Isaiah 63:7 to 64:12 as one prayer, start to finish.
- The next time you feel disqualified, pray the short line:
thou art our father
. - Pray the Lord's Prayer slowly and stop on the first two words.
This is name 56 of the 70 in the book. It comes after Thy Maker, Thine Husband, and the very next words of Isaiah 64:8 give us the next name, the potter and the clay. If you want to use names like this one in prayer, see praying the names of God.
