There is one word in the New Testament that should not exist.
It appears twice in the entire New Testament corpus. Once in Matthew, once in Luke. Both times in exactly the same context — the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer:
“Give us today our daily bread,” (Matthew 6:11, NET)
“Give us each day our daily bread.” (Luke 11:3, NET)
The Greek word translated “daily” is epiousios. It appears in those two verses and nowhere else in the New Testament. More remarkably: epiousios appears nowhere else in extant Greek literature before the New Testament. The word does not show up in classical Greek philosophy, in Hellenistic Greek popular writing, in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, or in any of the Greek papyri scholars have recovered from the ancient world — with one fragmentary and contested possible exception, an Egyptian housekeeping account that may date from a period when Christian usage of the word had already spread.
In a sense, the word does not exist outside the Lord’s Prayer. It appears to have been coined, almost certainly, for this specific petition — either by the evangelists when they rendered Jesus’s Aramaic teaching into Greek, or by Greek-speaking Christians very close to the apostolic generation who needed a new compound to capture something Jesus had said that no existing Greek word quite did. Origen, writing in the third century, noted that the word is “not used by any Greek writer” and observed its strangeness directly.
This is the entry on epiousios. It is a particularly unusual word in the New Testament’s vocabulary for the Christian life. The word is mysterious. The translation is contested. The interpretation has divided commentators for nearly two thousand years. And yet — and this is what makes the entry worth writing — the basic substance the petition asks for is one of the most beloved and most prayed-for gifts in the Christian life: the daily provision that comes from God through the ordinary structures of His creation, sustaining His people through their callings until He returns.
The Word
ἐπιούσιος (epiousios), pronounced eh-pee-OO-see-os. An adjective. The etymology is contested, and the lexical mystery has occupied commentators since the patristic period. There are three main proposals for how the word was formed, and each yields a different translation of “daily bread.”
The word appears to be a compound. The first element is clearly the preposition epi (ἐπί, “on, upon, over, at, for”). The second element is what is disputed. The three main proposals divide the scholarly conversation:
Proposal one: epi + ousia (οὐσία, “being, substance, essence”). This would yield “supersubstantial” or “essential” — the bread that goes beyond mere physical sustenance. Jerome rendered the Matthew occurrence with the Latin neologism supersubstantialem. This is the basis of the traditional Roman Catholic Eucharistic reading: the bread asked for is the bread of the Supper, the bread that is the body of Christ, the bread that surpasses ordinary food. The lexical objection: the compound ousia + epi would normally drop the iota of epi, but epiousios retains it. The construction is unusual.
Proposal two: epi + a form of ienai (ἰέναι, “to come”) or eimi (εἰμί, “to be”) yielding the participle epiousa (ἐπιοῦσα, “the coming”). The Greek for “the coming day” is hē epiousa hēmera. So epiousios could mean “for the coming day” — that is, “for tomorrow.” This is the most defensible etymologically and the most favored by modern scholarship. It is also the reading that the Aramaic substratum behind the prayer may support — Jerome reported in his commentary on Matthew that the Gospel of the Hebrews (a Jewish-Christian gospel he had access to) rendered the Aramaic with a word meaning “of tomorrow.”
Proposal three: epi + the participle ousan (οὖσαν, “being, present”) from eimi (to be). Epi tēn ousan hēmeran would mean “for the day that is” — that is, “for the present day,” “for today.” This yields “daily” in the standard English sense and aligns with the traditional Greek-to-Latin-to-English chain that gave us cotidianum and “daily.”
The Vulgate split is striking:
- Matthew 6:11: panem nostrum supersubstantialem (our supersubstantial bread).
- Luke 11:3: panem nostrum cotidianum (our daily bread).
Same Greek word, different Latin translations. Jerome was clearly wrestling with the difficulty, and his solution was to give one rendering in Matthew (favoring Proposal 1) and another in Luke (favoring Proposal 3). The split persisted in Latin Christianity for centuries, with theological consequences for how the petition was read.
Modern English translations have generally settled on “daily,” following Proposal 3 or a soft form of Proposal 2 (since “daily” can cover both “for today” and “for tomorrow” depending on context). The Greek Orthodox Church has historically read epiousios in line with Proposal 2 (for the coming day, with eschatological dimensions). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) acknowledges multiple readings while preserving the Eucharistic dimension Jerome’s Latin established.
The Hawara papyrus, discovered in Egypt and dating from approximately the fifth century AD, contains what some scholars have identified as the word epiousios in a fragmentary housekeeping account. If this attestation is genuine and represents non-Christian secular usage, it would support Proposal 3 (epiousios as the daily portion or ration of a household servant). But the dating is late, the document is fragmentary, the reading is contested, and Christian usage of the word may well have spread by the fifth century — so the papyrus does not settle the question.
The honest summary: the word is unique, its etymology is disputed, and the major translation traditions have made different choices. The good news is that the basic substance of the petition is clear enough regardless of which etymological proposal is correct.
Range of Meaning
Given the lexical mystery, the range of epiousios is constructed from the three proposals rather than from a normal lexicographical survey of attested usage:
- Supersubstantial — the bread that surpasses mere physical sustenance. Proposal 1; basis of the Catholic Eucharistic reading.
- For the coming day / for tomorrow — bread that sustains into the next day, with possible eschatological dimensions (the bread of the coming kingdom). Proposal 2; favored by modern scholarship and by Eastern Orthodox tradition.
- Daily / for the present day — the bread for each day’s needs. Proposal 3; basis of the traditional English “daily.”
The three readings are not mutually exclusive in their pastoral application. The petition can be heard as asking for today’s bread (Proposal 3), for tomorrow’s bread (Proposal 2), and for the bread that surpasses ordinary food including the Lord’s Supper (Proposal 1) — at the same time, in different dimensions, all under one Greek word that has resisted neat definition for two thousand years.
Where You’ll Meet It
The word appears only in the two parallel versions of the Lord’s Prayer.
“So pray this way: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors.’” (Matthew 6:9–12, NET)
Matthew’s version, embedded in the Sermon on the Mount. The Fourth Petition stands between the third (your will be done on earth) and the fifth (forgive us our debts). The structural placement matters: after asking for God’s name, kingdom, and will, the prayer turns to the petitioner’s own needs — and the first need named is bread. The prayer assumes dependence; the petition expresses it; the bread is the daily expression of God’s faithfulness to His children.
“So he said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘‘Father, may your name be honored; may your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And do not lead us into temptation.’’’” (Luke 11:2–4, NET)
Luke’s version follows a disciple’s request: “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1, NET). The petition reads, “Give us each day our daily bread” (Luke 11:3, NET). Luke uses the present imperative didou, while Matthew uses the aorist dos. Luke’s wording emphasizes the repeated daily asking; Matthew 6:11 asks for today’s bread. Both use epiousios and express dependence on the Father’s provision.
These two occurrences are the entire New Testament data. Two verses. Same prayer. Same word. The entry could be very short on lexical grounds — but the pastoral substance the petition opens up has occupied the church for two thousand years.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
We hear epiousios through Luther’s treatment of the Fourth Petition in the Small Catechism, which is the foundational Lutheran reading and one of the great pastoral inheritances of the Reformation. The catechism poses the question: “What is meant by daily bread?” And it answers with one of the most expansive readings of any single phrase in the Lord’s Prayer:
“Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious workers, pious and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”
Luther unpacked “daily bread” as a synecdoche — a part standing for the whole — and the whole is everything God provides through the structures of His creation for the maintenance of human life. Food and drink are bread. Clothing and shelter are bread. Land and animals and money are bread. The pious spouse and the faithful children and the trustworthy workers are bread. The good government that prevents lawlessness is bread. The good weather that allows crops to grow is bread. The peace of the streets is bread. The health of the body is bread. The faithful neighbor is bread. All of this is what the Christian asks God for when he prays “give us this day our daily bread.”
This is a remarkable reading. Where some traditions have read “daily bread” narrowly (just food, or just the Eucharist), Luther read it broadly — covering the full sphere of God’s daily provision through the ordinary structures of creation, family, work, government, and community. The petition becomes a prayer for the whole life God sustains through the means He has appointed.
The connection to vocation is direct. Klēsis treated the Lutheran doctrine of vocation — every legitimate work is a calling from God, for the service of neighbor. The Fourth Petition is the prayer side of that doctrine. God provides daily bread through the structures of vocation — through the farmer who plants and harvests, through the miller who grinds, through the baker who bakes, through the merchant who sells, through the worker who earns the wage, through the family that prepares the meal, through the friends who share the table. The petition is not a request for miraculous provision apart from these structures; it is a request that God would continue to provide through them. The three estates of Klēsis (ecclesia, oeconomia, politia) are the channels by which the answer to the petition comes. Faithful church, faithful household, faithful civil order — all are means of God’s daily provision, and the believer prays for the continuance of them all when he prays for daily bread.
This pushes back against several reductive readings.
The “spiritualizing” reading treats daily bread as purely metaphorical or sacramental, ignoring the petition’s plain reference to ordinary daily provision. The Lutheran response: yes, the Lord’s Supper is one of the ways God sustains His people, but the petition is not narrowly Eucharistic. The plain meaning of bread is the plain meaning of bread. Luther kept the breadth.
The “materializing” reading reduces daily bread to physical food alone, missing the broader sphere Luther’s catechism opens. The Lutheran response: the petition covers food, yes, but also the whole sphere of God’s sustaining provision. To pray only for the meal on the table is to pray a narrower petition than the Lord taught.
The dismissive reading treats the petition as outdated for affluent Christians who do not face daily food insecurity. “I have a full pantry; why do I need to pray for daily bread?” The Lutheran response: even affluent Christians depend on God’s provision through the same structures. The full pantry was filled through the work of farmers, truckers, store clerks, and many others; through the peace of the political order that allows commerce; through the health that allowed the believer to work and earn; through the family and community that make daily life possible. The petition teaches dependence and gratitude regardless of material circumstance, and the believer who treats it as outdated has misunderstood what is actually being asked for.
A second emphasis: the petition is corporate, not merely individual. We pray “give us our daily bread,” not “give me my daily bread.” The pronoun is first-person plural. The Christian who prays the Lord’s Prayer prays alongside the whole church — and prays for the daily bread of all the members. The petition extends to those who lack bread today, to those who will lack tomorrow, to the persecuted who are denied bread by hostile authorities, to the poor who depend on the generosity of others, to the elderly who can no longer earn their own bread, to the children who depend on parents, to the disabled who depend on community, to the refugees who have fled with nothing. All of these are “us” in the prayer. All of them are the recipients of the bread we ask for.
This corporate dimension has practical implications. The Christian who prays the Lord’s Prayer is praying for the bread of others as much as for his own. The natural consequence: those who pray this prayer should be among those who care for the bread of others. The church that prays “give us this day our daily bread” is the church that gathers food for the hungry, that supports widows and orphans, that gives generously to neighbors in need, that engages the structural questions of how bread is produced and distributed in the wider society. The petition is not merely a request; it is a calling. The petitioner asks God to provide; God’s primary way of providing is through the petitioner himself and the community he is part of.
The eschatological dimension is also present. If epiousios means “for the coming day” in the deepest sense (Proposal 2 in its eschatological reading), then the petition also asks for the bread that will sustain us until Christ returns and the marriage feast of the Lamb begins. The daily bread is God’s provision in the meantime; the eschatological bread is the feast that fulfills it. Both are anticipated in the petition. Both are God’s gift through Christ.
Where Lutherans have been more cautious than the Catholic tradition: forcing the Eucharistic reading. The Catholic tradition, following Jerome’s supersubstantialem rendering of Matthew, has often read the Fourth Petition as referring primarily to the Lord’s Supper. Lutheran exegesis has held that while the Lord’s Supper is indeed one of the means by which God sustains His people, the petition itself is not narrowly Eucharistic — it covers daily bread in the broad sense Luther’s catechism unpacks. The Supper is not excluded from the petition; but the petition is not reduced to it either. Bread on the family table and bread on the altar are both God’s gift, and the Christian prays for both, but the petition’s plain language opens to the full breadth of God’s daily provision rather than narrowing to the Supper alone.
The pastoral payoff: when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Fourth Petition is asking God to continue providing everything that sustains your life. Food, shelter, work, family, community, peace, health, government, the structures of the world that allow you to wake up tomorrow and live another day. You are asking for daily bread in the full Lutheran sense. You are joining your prayer to the church’s prayer — to “us” who pray together for the bread we share. You are depending on God for what He gives through the ordinary structures of His creation and through the callings He has placed you in. You are also accepting the corporate calling that flows from the corporate petition: the duty to be a means by which God provides daily bread for others.
Where People Get It Wrong
Three common ways.
The first is forcing the Eucharistic reading. The Catholic tradition’s supersubstantialem interpretation makes the petition narrowly about the Lord’s Supper. The Lutheran response: the Supper is one of the means by which God sustains His people, but the petition is broader; it covers daily bread in the full sense Luther unpacks; reducing the petition to the Eucharist alone misses what the prayer is actually asking for.
The second is reducing daily bread to food alone. The minimalist reading that treats the petition as narrowly about meals at the table. The Lutheran response: Luther’s catechism opens the petition to the full sphere of God’s daily provision — food, yes, but also clothing, shelter, work, family, community, peace, health, government, neighbors. The petition is as wide as God’s daily faithfulness to His creation.
The third is privatizing the petition. Praying “give us” as if it meant “give me.” The American individualist habit of treating the Lord’s Prayer as personal devotion rather than the prayer of the gathered people of God. The Lutheran response: the plural is intentional; the petition is corporate; the Christian who prays alone still prays “give us”; the prayer joins the petitioner to the whole church and to the bread of others.
A fourth pattern worth noting: dismissing the petition as outdated for affluent Christians. The assumption that those who do not face food insecurity do not need to pray this petition. The Lutheran response: the petition teaches dependence and gratitude regardless of material circumstance; even the wealthy depend on God’s provision through structures the wealthy did not create and cannot fully control; the petition is for all believers in all circumstances; the seasonally fortunate today may be the seasonally desperate tomorrow.
A fifth pattern: overforcing the lexical puzzle. Some commentators have built entire interpretive systems on one or another etymological proposal, treating their preferred reading as decisive against the others. The Lutheran response: the broader pastoral reading does not depend on settling the lexical question; the petition’s content is clear in its context regardless of which etymological proposal is correct. The believer can pray the Fourth Petition with full confidence even while the scholarly debate continues.
So What
When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, the Fourth Petition is asking God to continue providing everything that sustains your life and the life of your neighbor — food, shelter, work, family, community, peace, health, government, the structures of the world that allow you to wake up tomorrow and live another day. The petition is corporate. The “us” is the whole church and beyond — every human being who needs bread today and tomorrow. The petition is daily. You pray it again because the need is again. The God who provided yesterday provides today and will provide tomorrow until His kingdom is fully come.
For Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders: when you teach the Lord’s Prayer, take time on the Fourth Petition. Luther’s Small Catechism is one of the great pastoral inheritances of the Lutheran tradition, and the catechism’s treatment of daily bread opens the petition to its full pastoral richness. Help your students see that “daily bread” includes food and drink, yes, but also clothing, shelter, work, family, community, government, peace, health — the full sphere of God’s daily provision through the structures He has appointed. And help them see that the petition is corporate. “Us,” not “me.” The Christian prays for all the members of the body, for the neighbor in need, for the stranger across the world, for the persecuted church, for the unreached, for the hungry, for everyone who shares the dependence on God that the petition expresses.
For yourself: when you pray “give us this day our daily bread,” receive what the petition gives. You are not on your own. You depend on God for all that sustains you. The food you eat came from a hundred hands you do not know. The peace of the streets where you walk was won by labors you did not perform. The roof over your head was built by craftsmen long before you were born. The faithful spouse, the pious children, the trusted neighbors — all are God’s gifts to you, given through structures of creation and vocation He sustains. The petition teaches you to see your daily life as gift. Receive it with thanksgiving. Pray it for all who lack what you have. Be one of the means through which God answers the petition for others.
Related studies explore the Spirit and the Christian life — the Spirit’s identity (pneuma, paraklētos), the believer’s holiness (hagios), love (agapē), vocation (klēsis), confidence (parrhēsia), maturity (teleios), and the daily prayer for provision (epiousios). The Christian life is daily. The Christian life is dependent. The Christian life is vocational. The Christian life is corporate. The Spirit produces in the believer the love, holiness, confidence, and maturity the New Testament names — and the believer prays daily for the bread that sustains it all, joining his prayer to the prayer of the whole church.
The “us” who pray “give us this day our daily bread” is the church. The related entries on Ekklesia (the assembly), Presbyteros (elder), Episkopos (overseer/bishop), and Diakonos (deacon/servant) explore the community in which the Christian life is lived and the offices that serve it. The Spirit who works in the believer is the same Spirit who gathers the believer into the church. The bread we pray for as “us” is the bread the ekklēsia shares.