Elahi (אֱלָהִי) is an Aramaic word meaning "My God".1 Elah means "god",2 with the suffix -i meaning "my." Being Aramaic and not Hebrew (there is no singular possessive for "god" in Biblical Hebrew), in the Old Testament, Elahi is found only in the books of Ezra and Daniel.2 It is best known for its transliteration in Mark 15:34, "ἐλωΐ ἐλωΐ" eloi eloi.
Christian use
Some scholars believe Elahi may be the name of God that Jesus vocalized in his last words on the cross. Science historian Livio Catullo Stecchini and Jan Sammer write, "The limits of Mark‘s knowledge of Hebrew are revealed by the sentence Elo[h]i Elo[h]i Lama Sabachthani which he puts into the mouth of Jesus. It is a confused rendering into Greek lettering of the text of Psalm 22:2,a which reads in Hebrew eli eli lama azabtani and in Aramaic elahi elahi lema sebaqtani."3
References
References
- By Masoretic numbering. In versions where the colophon is not counted, 22:1.
- Discovering the Language of Jesus by Douglas Hamp, Calvary Chapel Publishing (August 12, 2005), p. 50
- "The Aramaic Name for God - Elah". Hebrew4christians.com. Retrieved 2013-01-01.
- The Gospel According to Seneca, by Livio C. Stecchini & Jan Sammer, 1996