Elahi () is an

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

word meaning "My God". ''Elah'' means "

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

", with the suffix ''-i'' meaning "my." Being Aramaic and not Hebrew (there is no singular possessive for "god" in

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

), in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

, ''Elahi'' is found only in the books of

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

and

Daniel Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the acti ...

. It is best known for its transliteration in

Mark Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...

15:34, "ἐλωΐ ἐλωΐ" ''eloi eloi''.

Christian use

Some scholars believe Elahi may be the name of God that

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

vocalized in his last words on the cross. Science historian

Livio Catullo Stecchini Livio Catullo Stecchini (6 October 1913 – September 1979) was an Italian professor of ancient history at William Paterson University, Paterson State Teachers College (now William Paterson University) in New Jersey. He wrote on the history of ...

and Jan Sammer write, "The limits of

‘s knowledge of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

are revealed by the sentence ''Elo Elo Lama Sabachthani'' which he puts into the mouth of Jesus. It is a confused rendering into

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

lettering of the text of Psalm 22:2, which reads in Hebrew ''eli eli lama azabtani'' and in Aramaic ''elahi elahi lema sebaqtani''."''The Gospel According to Seneca'', by Livio C. Stecchini & Jan Sammer, 1996

References

{{reflist

External links

Discovering the Language of Jesus

Names of God in Judaism Aramaic words and phrases Aramaic words and phrases in Jewish prayers and blessings

Christian use

See also

References

External links