Most of what Jesus said was first heard in Aramaic, written down in Greek, and carried to us in English. That is a lot of doors for the original meaning to walk through. Most of the time the meaning makes it across, a little bruised but recognizable. Sometimes it does not.
Some sayings of Jesus turn on a single word that carries two senses at once, and the English can only hold one of them. Some turn on a Hebrew idiom that sounds harsh until you know what idiom it is. Some turn on a pun in Aramaic that the Greek itself could only gesture at, much less the English. When you get under the words and look at the verb, the gender, the diminutive, the article, the loanword, the tense, you find Jesus doing work the surface English cannot show you.
This is not showing off. This is part of the assignment. Jesus chose his words. The Gospel writers chose theirs. If we want to hear what was being said, we have to be willing to look at what was being said in.
Born again, or born from above
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Jesus tells him that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The Greek word is anōthen, and it carries two meanings at once. Again. From above. Both are in the word. The English has to pick one. Nicodemus hears only the lower meaning and goes straight to absurdity. Can a man enter a second time into his mother’s womb. He has grabbed the lower meaning and run with it. Jesus has been speaking heaven. Nicodemus has been hearing biology.
Then Jesus pivots on a second word that does the same thing. The Hebrew ruach and the Greek pneuma both mean wind, breath, and Spirit, all three. So when Jesus says the wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound, you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes, the picture is wind and the teaching is the Spirit. The whole conversation turns on words that mean two things at once. Nicodemus keeps grabbing the wrong one.
Before Abraham was, I AM
In John 8, Jesus says it directly. “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58, NKJV).
He does not say I was. The grammar would have allowed it. The argument was about chronology. The expected verb would have been a past tense. He says ego eimi. I AM. Present tense.
It is the same construction the Greek Old Testament uses to render the name God gave Moses at the burning bush. I am who I am. I AM has sent me to you (Exodus 3:14). The grammar is the claim. He has stood in front of them and spoken the unspeakable name as his own.
The crowd heard it exactly that way. They picked up stones to kill him on the spot. They were not confused. They knew what he had just said.
The wing of his garment
The woman with the issue of blood touches the hem of Jesus’ robe. The Greek word is kraspedon, which does not mean a hem in our sense. It means the tassel, the tzitzit, the fringe a Jewish man wore on the corner of his garment by command of Numbers 15.
The Hebrew word for that corner is kanaph. And kanaph has a second meaning. It also means wing.
Now hear Malachi 4:2. “But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (NKJV). The word is kanaph. Wings.
The bleeding woman reaches for the wing of his garment, and the prophet Malachi had promised, four hundred years before, that the Sun of Righteousness would rise with healing in his wings. She does not know the prophecy. She does not need to. The closest part of him is the fringe.
Under the law, an unclean woman who touched a clean man would have made him unclean. But she touches the holiest fringe of the Holy One, and the law runs backward. His holiness flows out and cleanses her. The current reverses.
The Lord speaks in language because he wants to be understood
These are not curiosities. These are sermons. Jesus used the languages he spoke the way a craftsman uses his tools. Every word was chosen. Every verb tense matters. Every diminutive opens a door. The Gospel writers, working in Greek, preserved the word choices because they knew the words were doing the work.
There is a lesson for our reading in this. Slow down. Read with your finger on the verse. Look up the word. Get a Strong’s. Get an interlinear. Get a study Bible with the cultural notes. Do not assume the English carries everything across, because the English cannot. You do not have to learn Greek to do this. You just have to be willing to look at the footnote.
And there is a deeper lesson under the practical one. The Lord speaks in language because he wants to be understood. He chose human speech, with its puns and idioms and double meanings and grammar, because that is how human beings hear. He did not bypass our minds. He spoke into them in the way they actually work. If we want to hear him, we have to take the trouble he took.
He never said anything sloppy. The word he used is the word he meant.
This is part of the Hidden in Plain Sight series. The full study is available as a book and as a six-week small group resource at hanksbiblestudy.com.
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