Mark 15:34 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Mark 15:34
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
to explain over · verb — present passive participle, nominative singular neuter
My
μοῦmoû
G3450
of me
God
θεόςtheos
G2316
figuratively · noun — vocative singular masculine, a title
my
μοῦmoû
G3450
of me
God
θεόςtheos
G2316
figuratively · noun — vocative singular masculine, a title
why
τίti
G5101
an interrogative pronoun · interrogative pronoun — accusative singular neuter
forsaken
ἐγκατέλιπέςegkatelipes
G1459
to leave behind in some place · verb — aorist active indicative, 2nd person singular
me
μουmou
G3165
me · personal pronoun — 1st person genitive singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 22:1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou fo…
Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save h…
Psalms 27:9 Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salv…
Psalms 71:11 Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.
Isaiah 41:17 When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel w…
Psalms 42:9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Daniel 9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, tou…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Mark 15:33-41
Here we have an account of Christ's dying, how his enemies abused him, and God honoured him at his death.
I. There was a thick darkness over the whole land (some think over the whole earth), for three hours, from noon till three of the clock. Now the scripture was fulfilled (Amo 8:9), I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day; and Jer 15:9, Her sun is gone down while it is yet day. The Jews have often demanded of Christ a sign from heaven; and now they had one, but such a one as signified the blinding of their eyes. It was a sign of the darkness that was come, and coming, upon the Jewish church and nation. They were doing their utmost to extinguish…
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,.... See Gill on Matthew 27:46;
saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? in Matthew it is, "Eli, Eli", Both "Eli" and "Eloi", are Hebrew words, and signify the same; and are both used in Psalm 22:1, from whence the whole is taken:
which is, being interpreted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? See Gill on Matthew 27:46.
John Calvin on Mark 15:33-41
Mark 15:33-41
Matthew
27:45-56
Mark 15:33-41
Luke 23:44-49
45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land [280] till the ninth hour. 46. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? 47. And some of those who were standing by, when they heard it, said, He calleth Elijah. 48. And immediately one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and fastened it to a reed, and gave him to drink. 49. But others said, Let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come to save him. 50. And Jesus having again cried with a loud voice, gave up his spirit. 51. And, lo, the vei…
At the ninth hour, the tenth piece of money which had been lost is found, by the overturning of the house.
In his most compassionate humanity and through his servant form we may now learn what is to be despised in this life and what is to be hoped for in eternity. In that very passion in which his proud enemies seemed most triumphant, he took on the speech of our infirmity, in which "our sinful nature was crucified with him" that the body of sin might be destroyed, and said: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" … Thus the Psalm begins, which was sung so long ago, in prophecy of his passion and the revelation of the grace which he brought to raise up his faithful and set them free.
As human he doubts. He experiences amazement. It is not his divinity that doubts, but his human soul. He had no difficulty being amazed because he had taken humanity fully to himself. In taking upon himself a human soul, he also took upon himself the affections of a soul. As God he was not distressed, but as a human he was capable of being distressed. It was not as God he died, but as man. It was in human voice that he cried: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" As human, therefore, he speaks on the cross, bearing with him our terrors. For amid dangers it is a very human response to think ourself abandoned. As human, therefore, he is distressed, weeps, and is crucified.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Crucifixion — A common mode of punishment among heathen nations in early times. It is not certain whether it was known among the ancient Jews; probably it was not. The modes of capital punishment according to the…
Sabachthani — Thou hast forsaken me, one of the Aramaic words uttered by our Lord on the cross (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34).
Sabachthani, Or Sabachthani — (why hast thou forsaken me?), part of Christ’s fourth cry on the cross. (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) This, with the other words uttered with it, as given in Mark, is Aramaic (Syro-Chaldaic), the…
Syriac — (2 Kings 18:26; Ezra 4:7; Dan. 2:4), more correctly rendered “Aramaic,” including both the Syriac and the Chaldee languages. In the New Testament there are several Syriac words, such as “Eloi, Eloi,…
Eloi · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Lama Sabachthani · The dying cry of Jesus — The dying cry of Jesus
Paschal Lamb, Typical Nature Of · Killed in the evening — Killed in the evening
Persecution · OF JESUS — OF JESUS
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Mark 15:34
Eloi, Eloi . . . why have you abandoned me: Jesus’ loud cry is reported in its original Aramaic and then translated for Greek readers. • “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Jesus quotes Ps 22:1. This saying is best interpreted in light of Mark 14:27; Ps 22; Isa 53:10; 2 Cor 5:21; and Gal 3:13. The divine purpose in Jesus’ becoming a ransom for many (Mark 10:45) was now being realized.
