Lead Us Not Into Temptation

By Scott Ferrier, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

Recently, I read an article on the Lord’s Prayer by Dr. Brant Pitre, who for some time now has been among the leading exegetes in Catholic biblical scholarship, and is in great demand both as a catechist and a frequent conference speaker on biblical topics. He has authored books on both the New and Old Testaments, and heeds Saint Augustine’s biblical key: “The New Testament lies concealed in the Old and the Old lies revealed in the New.” 

There has been some controversy lately on the meaning of the fifth and last petition of the prayer Jesus taught to the disciples – “And lead us not into temptation.” The New Testament and common sense itself indicate that the meaning is not that God leads us into temptation. In his essay “The Lord’s Prayer and the New Exodus” (Letter & Spirit, Vol. 2, 2006), Dr. Pitre presents the case, in a detailed analysis of each passage, that the Lord’s Prayer, as the disciples heard and understood it, was the definitive echo of the ancient hope of the post-exilic Jews awaiting the announcement of a new Exodus which would bring about the coming of the Messiah.

The remnant in Judah expected YAHWEH to announce a new Exodus – one even greater than their former enslavement in Egypt and their forty years of tribulation in the desert. There would be an ingathering of the twelve tribes, conversion of the Gentiles, a Davidic king, and a final, everlasting covenant. 

Dr. Pitre first points out that the use of the word “father” in the Lord’s Prayer was typological and eschatological language of the Old Testament implying that the time of the new Exodus had arrived. The word “temptation” in the Greek original is peirasmos and has a dual meaning. Thus, it can also mean “trial, test, tribulation” and Pitre believes this to be the more likely interpretation. Following the biblical pattern, “a great trial” and “tribulation in the latter days” will happen before the Lord delivers his people to the promised covenant (Deuteronomy). 

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is urging his disciples to watch and pray that the new Exodus may take place, but that, if at all possible, it might come without the tribulation of the new Passover – the eschatological trial in which the first-born son would be put to death for the sins of Israel and Egypt.