In defence of the belief that speaking in
tongues (languages) is the way of proving one has the Spirit of God, one proof
often given is that Jesus also spoke in tongues, and so the practise is in
imitation of Him. But is it true? Did Jesus really speak in tongues? The answer is actually very simple:
Yes.
But maybe not the way that people would think. Here are the three examples
of Jesus “speaking in tongues”:
Mark 15:34 – And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a
loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
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?
Mark 5:41 – And he took the damsel by the hand, and
said unto her, Talitha cumi;
which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.
Mark 7:34 – And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and
saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.
Eli, eli
The first two verses are, obviously enough, the same
incident. Jesus was dying; and cried out to His God and Father. The translation
of the words He spoke should be familiar. It was written centuries before,
penned by another anointed one, King David, ancestor of our Lord and Messiah,
King Jesus:
Psalm 22:1 –My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? why art thou so far from helping me, and
from the words of my roaring?
Jesus’ words were a quote from this Psalm. “Eloi” and “Eli”
are two ways of transliterating the same thing (“my God”) into the Greek text
the Apostolic Scriptures were originally written in.
The third and fourth verses listed describes the
Lord’s words as he performed miracles by His Father’s power and authority,
commanding the young lady to rise from death and the man’s eyes to open so he
would see. Of course, the peace-speaker’s words were heeded.
Jesus’ “tongues”
So now,
let’s take a closer look at the words spoken by Jesus in the above verses. From
Thayer’s Greek Definitions:
Jesus’
Dying Words
Eloi,
Eli:
ēli (Aramaic
transliterated into Greek)
Thayer Definition:
1) Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. The Hebrew form, as Elio,
Elio, etc., is the Syro-Chaldaic (the common language in use by the Jews
in the time of Christ) of the first words of the twenty second Psalm;
they mean “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
elōi (Aramaic transliterated
into Greek)
Thayer Definition:
Eloi = “my God”
1) Aramaic for the phrase “my God”
lama
lama /
lamma (Aramaic transliterated into Greek)
Thayer Definition:
1) why
sabachthani
sabachthani (Aramaic
transliterated into Greek)
Thayer Definition:
1) thou hast forsaken
me
Jesus’ Words of Healing
Talitha
talitha (Aramaic
transliterated into Greek)
Thayer
Definition:
1)
damsel, maiden
cumi
koumi (Aramaic
transliterated into Greek)
Thayer
Definition:
1)
arise
Ephphatha
ephphatha
(Aramaic transliterated into Greek)
Thayer
Definition:
1)
be thou opened
1a)
receive the power of hearing, the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind
being considered as closed
This was a fair bit of info, and even if you just skimmed
it, that would be fine. There are just two things I want you to appreciate from
this. First, these words are all Aramaic words. They were all the same
language. Second, if you look at the definition for eli, we see that
this is Syro-Chaldaic, a form of Aramaic that was the common language spoken
by the Jews of the day!
Mother tongue
Aramaic is similar to Hebrew in many ways. Its usage
by Jewish people can be seen even evidenced in the fact that parts of Daniel
and Ezra were written in Aramaic. Jesus was a Jew. Would it not be logical to
assume that Jesus was speaking His own language? In His moments of great pain, He
cried out in His mother tongue. It’s a natural human tendency.
So, we have no Scriptural record of Jesus
speaking in tongues; not the way it is commonly understood and put forward by many
people. The examples of Jesus speaking another language is not speaking
in “tongues”, not in a language with which He would not have heard around Him,
but speaking His very own native language. They are simply thought by
others to be speaking
Our Master, the One whom we all should emulate simply
did not “speak in tongues”; there is simply no going around that. ש
© Copyright 2008
Keneil Thomas
· Tongues and Slaying in the Spirit
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