# Deliver us from evil...or the evil one?



## Pergamum (Nov 16, 2008)

Is the Lord's prayer more against evil, or a prayer against satan himself, the leader of the forces of evil?


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## OPC'n (Nov 16, 2008)

Do you mean Satan personally or his demons? Satan doesn't bother everyone all the time because he isn't omnipresent. I think it was Sproul who said that Satan probably only attacks the "big fish" (Martin Luther etc) and that he send his demons after us "small fish". So I would have to say that it is more against evil itself.


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 16, 2008)

I do think that the more precise translation is "the Evil One." The def.art. is present.

If I need to be delivered from a king, I don't necessarily believe he's personally hunting me down. His soldiers are extensions of his power. Satan is the "personal face" of evil, generally, and Paul speaks of him as hurling flaming arrows in the direction of believers to harm them (Eph.6:16).

Rev 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for *the devil is come down unto you*, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 
...
Rev 12:17 And *the dragon* was wroth with the woman, and *went to make war with the remnant of her seed*, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


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## MW (Nov 16, 2008)

Even if "the evil one" were accepted, 2 Thess 3:2, 3 shows there is no ipso facto reference to the devil in the words, since it might also be applied to wicked men.

The definite article is no argument in favour that it should be translated "evil one," as it might simply be referring to a specific evil present in the peirasmos of the previous clause. There are echoes of Jacob's affirmation in Gen. 48:16, which incline towards the traditional translation both here and in 2 Thess. 3:3.


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