Interestingly, in death, Jesus was quoting scripture from the Old Testament:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?" ( Psalms 22:1-2, NIV)
The Hebrew of the passage in question literally means: God, God, depart from? or God, God, abandon? (as a question).
The Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek languages have quite different forms with many words being "understood" in the Hebrew but with the Greek more closely resembling the English language.
Every translation I have seen accurately translates the phrase as, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
On a final note, an interesting question to ask is this: Why did God, the Father forsake or abandon Jesus in the moment of His death? The Bible does not answer this question specifically. Do YOU have an answer for this?
Answer Given By: Clay Willis
In a follow-up to this question, Mr. Borean (an Email Evangelist like Mr. Willis) offers the following for further study:
The meaning of Jesus utterance, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani has mystified many and has surely mystified me in the past. The exact, clear meaning of some Bible passages still eludes us even to this day. I offer the following as what seems to me to
be a highly plausible explanation of that Scripture.
Jesus was well aware of the ordeal He was going to go through. He knew the Old Testament prophecies concerning Himself and was fully aware of His mission on the earth. God was powerfully with Him all through his human life. He was quite cognizant of His
impending death as He tried to make His disciples understand it, as much as they were unbelieving. On the night of His arrest at Gethsemane, He asked His Father if it was possible to avoid such an unspeakable ordeal:
"And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. " ( Matthew 26:39)
Although he greatly disliked the suffering and cross ahead of Him, He accepted what was coming (see Hebrews 12:2). During His trial He remained largely silent. The Bible makes some reference about the scourging that He was submitted to, but no mention of any
reaction on His part. The Bible states that He was like a lamb to the slaughter, silent and resigned to it ( Isaiah 53:7). He walks to Calvary and tries to console the weeping women that follow Him ( Luke 23:28-31). There are no Scriptural details of the actual crucifixion (In the Mel Gibson movie The Passion Of The Christ, he tries to graphically give some details that the Bible omits). On the cross Jesus kindly talks to His two thieves placed on His side.
Every Scriptural account of the events of the crucifixion confirm His full acceptance of His fate and purpose. Then a strange thing takes place: after He has been on the cross for about six hours and His physical life is about to end as well as His great
suffering, all of a sudden He utters the famous words: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! meaning, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why? Can it make any sense at all that, with all the faith and Spirit given Him, "without measure", that all of a sudden He would balk and
wonder?! No, He didn't!
There is a Scripture that gives a clue:
" For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." ( 2Corinthians 5:21)
God the Father cannot look at sin. For a moment Jesus, symbolically, became sin and God had to look away. For the full effect of that event, God kept Jesus from knowing it. Jesus felt a strange vacuum of the Spirit and uttered the famous words,
meaning, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Quite understandably He felt momentarily forsaken. Quickly God the Father made an end of His spiritual and physical agony, and He died. We read in 1Corinthians 15: 56 :
"The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law."
It is consistent with that final detail and particularly with Luke 23:46,
"And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said , 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.' Having said this He breathed His last."
Answer Given By: Adriano Borean
