The horrific death of Jesus Christ who spent nearly 40 hours from the time of his capture to the crucifixion being mocked, ridiculed, beat, whipped, crowned with thorns twice….. and each time his cloths were ripped off the dried blood and scabs sticking to them would be painfully ripped off.
It is hard to even imagine what He went through.
Isaiah 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
One of the things that has always bothered me was the verses in Matthew and Mark ….they just don’t seem to fit with the rest.
The following is a study I did a while ago …I will just throw it in for consideration.
Matthew 27:46
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Consider the following scripture:
John 10:30
I and my Father are one.
The word “one” hen neuter, means “one in purpose”
How could they be one in purpose….. and have God forsake Him on the cross.
How about:
II Corinthians 5:19a
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself…
How could God be in Christ and forsake him?
John 16:32
Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me
Matthew 26:53
Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels
God would have given Jesus more than 72,000 angels …. At any point, Jesus could have walked away with a massive number of spiritual bodyguards.
How do we reconcile these scriptures with Matthew 27:46…and Mark 15:34…. it would appear to be a contradiction of terms.
It has been said that God hated sin so much that he had to turn away during the final moments of His only begotten sons life…..that really doesn’t fit.
Another consideration has been the quote from psalms 22 …maybe… but it still doesn’t fit.
One of the principles of biblical research is when you have several clear verses, and one that seemingly contradict those clear …..then it is either in our understanding, or in translation…..In this case I believe it is translation.
The words Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani are Aramaic, that is the language Jesus spoke
There is no such Aramaic word as lama however there is a word lmna which is a declaration as in “for this reason” or “for this purpose”
The word sabachthani comes from the root word shbk which means “to spare, or to keep, to leave, or reserve”. (The word remaining in the following verses have all been translated from shbk II Kings 10:11, Deuteronomy 3:3, Joshua 10:33)
Literally this should read Eli, Eli, lmna sabachthani that is to say, “My God, My God, for this reason, or for this purpose was I reserved, or spared”.
For this purpose Christ came into this world….. the purpose of our redemption…
Now that would be an interesting study if we left it there…but let’s put some icing on the cake
**From the Peshitta {Aramaic text} this reads Eli, Eli, lemana shabakthani “My God, My God, for this I was spared or this was my destiny”.
Another interesting fact: many eastern Bibles have “for this purpose I was spared” while the Occidental translations all read “why hast thou forsaken me.
**The words in Matthew 46 are not Greek words ….they are Aramaic, Jesus spoke Aramaic. These Aramaic word show up in this particular scripture, because the translators were not absolutely certain about their meaning. (Aramaic and Hebrew are close related Semitic languages).
When the words Jesus spoke were translated into Greek, the translators let the Aramaic words remain and then they added what they thought the Greek translation might be. Later when the King James translators were translating from the Greek manuscripts, they simply translated the Greek and left Aramaic words in the text.
One Aramaic scholar whose native tongue was Aramaic translated the Bible from Ancient eastern manuscripts. His translation from Aramaic is My God My God for this I was kept. He also noted that the words “that is to say” (Matthew 27) and “which is, being interpreted” (Mark 15) are not included in two old Aramaic sources the Sinaitic Palimpsest and the Curetonian Syriac. The translators of the Greek text added this these phrases…. and also left the Aramaic because they were not sure at handle the words.
I’ll let you decide ….. But that aside ….I am so thankful for what Jesus Christ endured for you and for me.