Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

Shinae · Joined: 25 Dec 2005 Posts: 18

Hi there,

I was reading the Lord's Prayer and came to these lines where it had the word "your" in it (the word is underlined for clarity). Why not "yours" in this case? Thank you again.

your kingdom comes, your will be done on earth

plastic · Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 17

Umm, I think it is belong to the reader not to the kingdom Confused

review Toefl books sometimes they put these kind of complx rule !

Lorikeet · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 1877 Location: San Francisco

Nef · Joined: 27 Nov 2005 Posts: 187 Location: California, USA

I agree that "will," as it is used here, is a noun (meaning something like intentions, wishes).

The underlining might be to stress that YOUR will, rather than MY will, be done.

LucentShade · Joined: 30 Dec 2003 Posts: 542 Location: Nebraska, USA

These lines of the Lord's Prayer are kind of tricky since they use the English subjunctive, which most native speakers aren't aware of. The full meaning of the line is, "(I pray that) your kingdom come, (I pray that) your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This is why we have "come" and "be" instead of "comes" and "is." "Your" refers to God in both cases, and "will" is used as a noun that means "desire," "wish," or "intention." (This meaning of "will" is related in language history to the "will" used in the future tense.)