4 ms·

'Thou' is also used in English prayers ('Thy kingdom come, thy will be done'), as a mark of a personal closeness to God.

tom_ 3y ago
"You" would be ambiguous anyway, and might imply that you are addressing more than one, contravening the first commandment.
dustincoates 3y ago
That's really more due to the influence of the King James Version than anything else. For example, ESV uses you: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A5-14&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A5... In French, however, God is always referred to with the informal tu, which surprises second language learners. But it makes sense when you realize that using plural for formal came about well after the Hebrew Bible, and because it was to implicitly refer to multiple people (sort of like the royal We), which obviously wouldn't be acceptable in Christianity.
- MrsPeaches 3y ago
  Also informal in English (c.f. The use of thou in the Lord’s Prayer)
- yawaramin 3y ago
  It wouldn't surprise South Asian (e.g. Bengali) Muslims who grow up hearing clerics address God as 'tui' (informal 'you' like French 'tu').
- erutuon 3y ago
  Good insight that I hadn't thought of. To flesh that out, the KJV translators used thou as singular and ye as plural consistently to render the second person singular-plural distinctions found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The translators never intended a usage of thou in the KJV to imply informality, only that the original language used the second person singular. That would naturally carry over into prayers and hymns that don't come from the KJV Bible. However, common people at the time who couldn't know the translators' chosen convention might have then read closeness into the pronoun used to address God, which wouldn't be a bad thing theologically.
mhdhn 3y ago
Informal du is used in German to talk to God. Same in Yiddish, which uses דו.

tom_ 3y ago

"You" would be ambiguous anyway, and might imply that you are addressing more than one, contravening the first commandment.

dustincoates 3y ago

That's really more due to the influence of the King James Version than anything else. For example, ESV uses you: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A5-14&version=ESV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A5... In French, however, God is always referred to with the informal tu, which surprises second language learners. But it makes sense when you realize that using plural for formal came about well after the Hebrew Bible, and because it was to implicitly refer to multiple people (sort of like the royal We), which obviously wouldn't be acceptable in Christianity.

MrsPeaches 3y ago
Also informal in English (c.f. The use of thou in the Lord’s Prayer)
yawaramin 3y ago
It wouldn't surprise South Asian (e.g. Bengali) Muslims who grow up hearing clerics address God as 'tui' (informal 'you' like French 'tu').
erutuon 3y ago
Good insight that I hadn't thought of. To flesh that out, the KJV translators used thou as singular and ye as plural consistently to render the second person singular-plural distinctions found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The translators never intended a usage of thou in the KJV to imply informality, only that the original language used the second person singular. That would naturally carry over into prayers and hymns that don't come from the KJV Bible. However, common people at the time who couldn't know the translators' chosen convention might have then read closeness into the pronoun used to address God, which wouldn't be a bad thing theologically.

mhdhn 3y ago

Informal du is used in German to talk to God. Same in Yiddish, which uses דו.