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Didache

About this book

Prayer After the Meal

Chapter 10

1 After you have eaten your fill, give thanks in this way:⁠ 2 'We thank You, Holy Father, for Your Holy Name that You have allowed to dwell in our hearts,⁠ and for the knowledge, faith, and immortality that You revealed to us through Jesus Your Child. May You be glorified forever.' 3 'You, Lord Almighty, created all things for the sake of Your Name and provided food and drink for people to enjoy, so they might thank You. But You have blessed us with spiritual food and drink and eternal light through Your Child.' 4 'Above all, we thank You because You are mighty. May You be glorified forever.' 5 'Remember, Lord, Your Church, and protect it from all evil. Perfect it in Your love, and gather it together in holiness from the four winds into Your kingdom that You have prepared.⁠ Yours is the power and the glory forever.' 6 'Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent. Our Lord, Come!⁠ Amen.' 7 Allow the prophets to conduct the Eucharist as they choose.

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 8:10 and Didache 10:1

Hebrew Bible · Early Christian

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Summary

In Deuteronomy, Moses tells Israel that after eating its fill in the good land it will praise God. The Didache, an early church manual, begins its prayer after the meal with the same language of eating one's fill, the basis of the Jewish grace.

Passages

Deuteronomy 8:10

Hebrew Bible
7 For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat food in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. 10 You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Didache 10:1

Early Christian
1 After you have eaten your fill, give thanks in this way: 2 'We thank You, Holy Father, for Your Holy Name that You have allowed to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith, and immortality that You revealed to us through Jesus Your Child. May You be glorified forever.' 3 'You, Lord Almighty, created all things for the sake of Your Name and provided food and drink for people to enjoy, so they might thank You. But You have blessed us with spiritual food and drink and eternal light through Your Child.' 4 'Above all, we thank You because You are mighty. May You be glorified forever.'
90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

References

“... This might also be inferred from the terminology in Did 10:1: "When you have had your fill" (μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἐμπλησθῆναι). Besides indicating that a material satiation from a meal is involved here, the verb ἐμπλησθῆναι also recalls the presciption in Deut 8:10 (LXX): "And you shall eat and be filled (καὶ φάγῃ καὶ ἐμπλησθήσῃ) and shall bless the Lord your God .... " The combination of φαγεῖν with ἐμπλησθῆναι ("to eat one's fill") appears to be a technical formula in the Bible aiming at the prosperous situation in the promised land (cf. also Deut 6:11; 8:12; Neh 9:25). In rabbinic sources, the Hebrew version of Deut 8:10 underlies the obligation to recite the Birkat Ha-Mazon and this verse is considered so important that it is also at the basis of the second strophe of the Birkat Ha-Mazon. The use of the term ἐμπλησθῆναι at the end of the meal may indicate that now the duty of reciting the prayer, enjoined in Deut 8:10, is performed. ...”
Huub van de Sandt and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section 3: Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature 5 (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2002), 312.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 8:10 and Didache 10:1

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