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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?*

One of Jesus’ cries from the cross, properly translated “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (The NLT uses an alternate spelling, “lema,” for the third word in the expression.) This form of the “cry of dereliction” (Mt 27:46) is slightly different from its other recorded form, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?” (Mk 15:34). Both versions are adaptations of Psalm 22:1 in the Aramaic, the common language of first-century AD Palestine. The only difference in the two accounts is that Mark’s version is completely Aramaic, whereas Matthew retains the Hebrew word for God (which was not uncommon for Aramaic-speaking Jews). The fact that some of Jesus’ hearers thought he was calling Elijah indicates that Matthew’s version is probably the original. Elias (Elijah) could have been confused with “Eli” more easily than with “Eloi” (Mt 27:47; Mk 15:35).

The textual variants that exist suggest the difficulties copyists and interpreters have had with Jesus’ words. After meditating on the passage, Martin Luther exclaimed, “God forsaken of God! Who can understand it?” Luther’s statement of the major theological problem, that Jesus was forsaken by God, is not the only possible understanding of the text. Debate has focused on two questions: whether in fact abandonment by God was expressed by Jesus’ use of the psalmist’s words, and why the onlookers spoke of Elijah.

Meaning of the Cry

At one extreme, many have been struck by the starkness of Jesus’ words. Some have even seen in them a realization on the cross that he had failed and that all hope was lost for the coming of God’s kingdom. From that perspective Jesus’ words were a cry of despair over a lost cause. However, such a view hardly fits the rest of the NT presentation of Jesus.

At the opposite extreme, some interpret the words as neither stark nor negative in any sense. They view the cry as an affirmation of Jesus’ faith in committing himself to God (Lk 23:46). To such interpreters, the fact that Jesus began his question with “My God, my God” and used a biblical quotation indicates religious reverence and continued faith. In Jewish practice sometimes the first line of a psalm or song would be quoted to refer to the whole work. Hence Jesus might have been quoting Psalm 22:1 as a way of referring to the whole psalm. Psalm 22 is clearly the lament of a righteous sufferer. Psalms of lament always expressed a prayer of confidence in God and praise to God as well as a prayer for help from God. Thus, from a certain point of view, the cry from the cross can be seen as a confident prayer.

Many biblical scholars find the second view as unconvincing as the first. The Gospel writers did not clarify the meaning of the cry. Yet if the words were an expression of confidence or praise, some indication would be expected in the text. As they stand, the words are hardly an expression of religious reverence. The words themselves and the fact they were expressed in a loud cry do not suggest a prayer of confidence or praise.

Another approach views the words as expressing Jesus’ feeling of isolation in a moment of extreme anguish but rejects the notion that he was actually forsaken by God.

But the interpretation that has become “traditional” is that Jesus was forsaken by God. In that view the context of the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42; Lk 22:39-46) indicates the kind of conflict expressed in Jesus’ cry on the cross. Jesus’ identification with sinners was so real that taking on their sin broke the closeness of his communion with the Father. Thus, Jesus’ abandonment by God is seen as an important aspect of the atonement. Although stressing that Jesus was actually forsaken, the traditional view goes on to stress that the unity of the Trinity remained unbroken.

The explanation of such a paradox is not easy. Some view it as a divine mystery and make no attempt to explain it at all. Others attempt to make some kind of distinction between what happened on the cross and the reality of God’s being. For example, in the early centuries of the church the view was expressed that only Jesus’ humanity was affected by the separation, so that his deity remained intact with God. Others argue that Jesus was separated from the Father “functionally” in the work of salvation but not “really” with respect to his existence.

The refusal of the Gospel writers to explain Jesus’ cry should make scholars hesitate to give precise or dogmatic explanations. At the least, one can confidently state that (1) the cry reflects the reality of Jesus’ humanity in the face of death, (2) the particular kind of death (“even death on a cross,” Phil 2:8) was especially scandalous, and (3) Christ’s identification with sinners was a horribly painful experience. Thus, although the cry is somehow related to the Atonement, the biblical texts do not discuss whether Jesus was absolutely abandoned. Further, they do not explain how God could recoil from sin at the same time that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). In doing justice to the depth of emotion expressed in the cry, one should be cautious not to force the text to say something the author did not intend.

Elijah and the Cry

Various possibilities of connections between the cry and Elijah have been offered. If the cry refers to the whole of Psalm 22, mention of Elijah by the bystanders would show that they understood Jesus’ words as expressing confidence in salvation. A salvation mediated by Elijah would have seemed natural to the Jews, who often saw Elijah as a deliverer of the righteous oppressed. Others claim that the bystanders were willfully and maliciously distorting Jesus’ words in order to mock him. Still others view the mention of Elijah as an honest misunderstanding because of the similarity of the words. The view that one adopts will depend to some extent on how Jesus’ cry is understood.