The Aramaic Words Jesus Spoke
The Gospels were written in Greek, but scattered through them are the actual Aramaic words Jesus spoke, preserved sound by sound. At the most charged moments, a girl raised from death, a deaf man healed, the agony in Gethsemane, the cry from the cross, the Greek text suddenly gives way and the mother tongue breaks through.
These words are the closest we can get to the voice of Jesus. Here they are, one by one: the scene, the meaning, and what each reveals. For the fuller picture of his language, see what language did Jesus speak.
Why a Greek Gospel Keeps Aramaic Words
Mark, the earliest Gospel, keeps the most Aramaic. Scholars read this as the fingerprint of living memory: the first hearers of these stories remembered the very sounds, and the sounds were too precious to smooth away. Mark writes them out in Greek letters and then adds a translation for his Roman readers.
The same words survive in the Peshitta, the Syriac Bible, where they simply return to their own language. In the Syriac Gospel of Mark, Talitha koumi is not a foreign phrase to be explained. It is just what Jesus said.
The Aramaic Words Jesus Spoke, One by One
Talitha koum: "Little girl, arise" (Mark 5:41)
A twelve-year-old girl lies dead, the mourners already wailing outside. Jesus puts everyone out except her parents and three disciples, takes her hand, and says two words: Talitha koum, "Little girl, arise." She stands up and walks, and Jesus, with perfect practicality, tells them to give her something to eat.
Talitha is a tender word for a young girl, from a root that also gives the Aramaic word for a young lamb; the manuscripts preserve both koum and the feminine form koumi (the Peshitta reads ܛܠܝܬܐ ܩܘܡܝ, talitha qumi). What it reveals: death, for Jesus, is as undramatic as waking a child. He speaks to the dead girl the way a mother speaks on a school morning.
Ephphatha: "Be opened" (Mark 7:34)
A man who can neither hear nor speak clearly is brought to Jesus in the Decapolis. Jesus takes him away from the crowd, touches his ears and his tongue, looks up to heaven, sighs, and says one word: Ephphatha, "Be opened." The Peshitta gives it as ܐܬܦܬܚ, ethpattah.
The command is addressed not to the ears but to the whole man: be opened. The Church still uses this word in the Rite of Baptism, touching the ears and lips of the newly baptized. What it reveals: healing, for Jesus, is an unlocking of the person, and it costs him something, for Mark says he sighed.
Abba: "Father" (Mark 14:36)
Gethsemane, night, the disciples asleep. Jesus falls to the ground and prays: Abba, Father, all things are possible for you; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.
Abba is the family word for "father," intimate and warm. Preachers sometimes render it "daddy," but scholarship, especially since James Barr's 1988 study, is clear that it is not childish: grown sons and daughters called their father Abba too. It is the address of an adult child who trusts completely. What it reveals: at the darkest hour of his life, Jesus speaks to God from inside the family. And Paul says the Spirit gives us the same word (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6), the word that opens the Our Father in Aramaic: Abwoon, our Father.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
The ninth hour, darkness over the land. Jesus cries out in a loud voice: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani. Bystanders mishear it as a call to Elijah. Mark translates: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
It is the first line of Psalm 22, prayed in Aramaic. The psalm begins in abandonment and moves, verse by verse, through pierced hands and divided garments to trust and vindication: "he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him." In the Peshitta the verse translates itself, giving the cry as Il, Il, lmono shbaqtoni and then repeating it as "Alohi, Alohi": my God, my God. What it reveals: real anguish, with the whole psalm folded inside it. Jesus dies praying, and the prayer he chooses ends in hope. The verb shbaq, to leave or forgive, is the same root as shboqlan in the Our Father: "forgive us."
Maranatha: "Our Lord, come!" (1 Corinthians 16:22)
This one is not from the Gospels but from a letter Paul wrote in Greek to a Greek-speaking city, and yet he ends it with an Aramaic prayer he never translates: Maranatha. Corinth already knew it. It was the Church's prayer before the Church had books.
Divided as Marana tha it means "Our Lord, come!"; as Maran atha, "Our Lord has come." The Peshitta writes ܡܪܢ ܐܬܐ, maran etho. What it reveals: within a generation of the crucifixion, Aramaic-speaking Christians were praying to Jesus as Maran, our Lord, the title the Syriac liturgy still gives him, as in Moran and Moryo sung in every Qurbono.
Raqa: "Empty-head" (Matthew 5:22)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus quotes an insult his hearers used every day: whoever says to his brother Raqa is answerable to the court. Raqa is Aramaic for "empty one," an empty-head, a nobody.
What it reveals: Jesus treats an everyday word of contempt as a matter for judgment, because contempt is where violence begins. The detail also quietly confirms his world: the insult he quotes is not Greek but the Aramaic of the street.
Mammon: wealth as a master (Matthew 6:24)
"You cannot serve God and Mammon." Mamona is the Aramaic word for wealth, property, that in which one trusts. Jesus personifies it: not money as a tool, but money as a rival lord who takes servants.
What it reveals: in Jesus' Aramaic, the question about money is never merely practical. It is a question of allegiance, of which master's voice you answer to.
Golgotha: "the place of the skull" (Mark 15:22)
The site of the crucifixion kept its Aramaic name even in the Greek Gospels: Golgotha, from gulgulta, "skull" (Peshitta ܓܓܘܠܬܐ, gogulto). A bare rise outside the city wall, named for what it looked like and for what happened there.
What it reveals: the crucifixion is not a story set nowhere. The earliest witnesses remembered the actual place by its actual local name, in the language of the people who watched.
Kepha: "Rock" (John 1:42)
Jesus looks at a fisherman named Simon and renames him: "You shall be called Kepha," Aramaic for "rock." The Greek Gospels translate it as Petros, Peter, but Paul keeps calling him Cephas, the Aramaic form, in his letters.
What it reveals: the name at the foundation of the Church is an Aramaic word. When Jesus says "on this kepha I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18), the wordplay is native to his own tongue.
Boanerges: "Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17)
Jesus gives James and John, the brothers who wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village, a nickname: Boanerges, which Mark explains as "Sons of Thunder." The Greek spelling puzzles scholars, and the exact Aramaic behind it is debated; the Peshitta renders it bnay reghshi, sons of tumult.
What it reveals: Jesus had humor, and he knew his friends. He named their storm and kept them anyway, and one of the Sons of Thunder became the apostle who wrote "God is love."
Where These Words Still Live: The Maronite Liturgy
None of these words are museum pieces. In the Maronite Qurbono, the liturgy of the Maronite Catholic Church, Syriac Aramaic is still sung every Sunday: Abun d'bashmayo, the Our Father; Qadishat Aloho, Holy God; Moran and Moryo, the Lord, the same title hidden inside Maranatha.
Syriac, the liturgical language of the Maronites, is a dialect of the same Aramaic Jesus spoke. So when a Maronite congregation in Beirut or Sydney sings the Our Father in Syriac, the Abba of Gethsemane and the shbaq of the cross are still on Christian lips, two thousand years on. To go further, read Psalm 23 in Aramaic, the Our Father in Aramaic, and the story of the Peshitta Bible that carried these words through the centuries.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Talitha koum mean?
Talitha koum is Aramaic for "Little girl, arise." Jesus speaks it in Mark 5:41 when he raises the daughter of Jairus from death. Talitha is a tender word for a young girl, from a root that also gives the word for a young lamb, and koum (or koumi) is the command "rise." Mark preserves the actual Aramaic sounds and then translates them for his Greek readers, which suggests the scene was remembered by someone who heard it.
What does Abba really mean?
Abba is the Aramaic word for "father" spoken within the family. It is intimate and warm, but scholars since James Barr's 1988 study agree it does not mean the childish "daddy." Adult sons and daughters called their father Abba too; it is the address of a grown child who trusts completely. Jesus prays it in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36), and Saint Paul says the Spirit teaches Christians the same cry: "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6).
Why did Jesus cry Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani?
Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). It is the opening line of Psalm 22, spoken in Aramaic from the cross. Jesus is praying the psalm every suffering Jew knew, a psalm that begins in abandonment and ends in trust and vindication. The cry is real anguish, and at the same time it points to the whole psalm, which ends with God hearing the afflicted one and all the earth turning to the Lord.
What does Maranatha mean?
Maranatha is an Aramaic prayer preserved untranslated in 1 Corinthians 16:22. Divided as Marana tha it means "Our Lord, come!"; divided as Maran atha it means "Our Lord has come." Both readings are ancient and both are true, which may be why the Church never chose between them. It is one of the oldest Christian prayers we possess, older than the written Gospels, and it shows the first Christians praying to Jesus as Lord in Aramaic.
Did Jesus speak Aramaic or Hebrew?
Jesus' everyday language was Galilean Aramaic; that is what he spoke at home, in teaching, and in the sayings the Gospels preserve untranslated. He also knew Hebrew, the language of Scripture and synagogue, since he read from Isaiah in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-20), and he likely used some Greek in a region of trade and Roman rule. But when the Gospel writers reach for his exact words at the most charged moments, the words that surface are Aramaic.
See also: Psalm 23 in Aramaic. The Our Father in Aramaic. What language did Jesus speak. The Peshitta Bible. The Beatitudes in Aramaic. The Hail Mary in Aramaic. The Maronite Divine Liturgy (Qurbono). The Maronite tradition.