Jim_Duyer
3rd August 2024, 21:08
Spoiler alert: I believe Christians will not have a problem with this post, nor will non-Christians.
I've always been intrigued by the message that was said to have been written on the wall of the palace of King Belzhazzar and that was interpreted by Daniel when the king's advisors could not solve the puzzle. Today we have a popular idiom "The writing is on the wall", that suggests a portent of doom or misfortune, based on the story of Belshazzar's feast in the Book of Daniel.
I was not able to do much with the traditional translation since I had not studied Aramaic, which is the language Daniel wrote in, and was then translated into Hebrew and on into English and other languages. Recently I have had to become proficient in both Ancient Aramaic and Arabic writing, and especially Ancient South Arabic, and so I decided to take another look at it.
I'm not asking anyone to accept this as an alternative translation - the one that King James Version and others provide is fine for those that follow the Good Book. What I am proposing are alternate translations taken from the same words. And the reason for this is that, in many ancient Near Eastern cultures, the scribes would typically furnish two or even three different meanings for a verse, depending upon your level of expertise in the arts of transliteration and translation. The reason for this is simple - they wished to convey as much information as possible with a small number of words, and the fact that Aramaic, Arabic and Hebrew were all written without vowels, without spacing or punctuation of any kind, and without the splitting into verses that we accept today, made it easy for them to do so. Those with, as they say "eyes that see and ears that hear" could pick out this additional information - and the deeper you were into the culture the more you would receive.
I have uncovered the three meanings, and even more, in relation to the writing on the wall from Daniel Chapter 5, and even if you are not a believer you may appreciate the subtle use of encrypted message writing at that period some 2550 and more years ago. I will sincerely try to keep the technical stuff brief.
One of the things that bothered me about the traditional translation is this part: "That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean [Babylonian] king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom", in Daniel 5:30–31. As a historian I know that there was no "Darius the Mede", or at least none that was recorded anywhere, but I would like to believe Daniel's statement. It turns out that all of this is explained by the alternate meanings and the truth is that it was the result of a mis-translation of the traditional version. In all fairness, when the King James group did their translations, Aramaic was not completely known in the West, and much progress has been made in the past 25 years or so. Arabic was even less known in the West of that day - it was very difficult to secure qualified translators to help them.
Daniel Chapter 5 gives us the message the was written on the palace wall by a spirit: Daniel reads the words "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" and interprets them for the king: "MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed ... and found wanting;" and "UPHARSIN", your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
That translation will work with the given characters, but there are three good alternative translations that provide quite a bit more information to confirm the story and set the historical record straight.
We have to ignore the transliteration into Roman of the early Christian writers and recognize these as they were written in the Aramaic and then Hebrew languages. By doing that we learn that these would have appeared in the Biblical text of the Hebrews as: MNA MNA TQL W PRSYN, except without spaces of any kind. The early Christians took TQL and wrote what it sounded like to them, and not the way that it was actually written. In some way we sould be thankful for this, since otherwise we would be struggling to pronounce the text. Without using the Hebrew text from the Massoretic rendering of the Bible, since it is a transliteration of a transliteration, I will give you the original, in Aramaic, and the meanings in that language (which Daniel wrote in, since he was a prisoner in Babylonia).
MNA is written mn' in Ancient Aramaic, with their apostrophe taking the place of the Hebrew A (ayin and aleph), which were included when vowels were added to the Hebrew Bible around 900 A.D., but which were silent and not pronounced originally - merely included for a break point in the singing of the words (the Rabbi sang the text in the Temple worship) and as a pronunciation aid.
mn' = weight in Aramiac, as well as a small coin - equal to a penny. But it also means: portions, part, a fragment, a member of a group, a degree, and to associate with. If we consider a penny as a portion, part or fragment of a larger monetary unit (say $1), these all fit into the same theme.
tql in Aramaic is translated as: to weight something, to evaluate, estimate, to balance. But it equally means: to stumble (fall, trip, error or blunder, a clumsy walk) and bumbler, to blunder, a blunderer. Other meanings for tql include to make a mistake or have trouble, to be burdensome, oppressive, to be sluggish, dull-witten, to burden someone with something and the weight of sin or iniquity. The same word in Aramaic is also devined as one who removes an obstacle to even the level of the field and figuratively to cause one to fall into sin, to become snagged with sin and fall or stumble into sinning.
All of these come from the Aramaic Dictionary Project, a peer-reviewed primary source for Aramaic.
W in Aramaic means and, also, so, then.
Prsy in Aramaic has several interesting meanings:
To uncover, to reveal, to put to shame in public, to be uncovered, revealed, to be exposed to shame, to be reviled in public.
Prsy is also the Aramaic word to define a Persian. Now Wiktionary and other sources tell us that King Belshazzar was a Chaldean (southern part of modern Iraq, ancient Sumeria), but that this is not confirmed but an estimate, and that his country of origin, and that of his Father, is unkown. And yet here we have Daniel clearing this up by telling us that he was Persian, from Iran in other words, and not from Iraq or Chaldea. Which may not seem that important in this instance, but as another clue towards the true origins of the two principal groups that make up the Hebrews and modern Jews, it is very much so.
So what are our three new bits of information that we can safely form from these consonants in Daniel?
1. Your portion or your degree (of guilt) has been weighed and evaluated then, Persian!
2. You and your oppressive associates have become entangled in Sin; it will be revealed and you will be exposed to public shame.
3. Your current value, your weight in silver, is equal to a lowly penny!
The problems with the traditional interpretation done by Biblical Scholars are as follows:
Yes, there is a MN in Aramaic that is defined as "to number", but it is not spelled exactly the same. There is no idea of "an end, ending" in mem nun aleph (MN' in Aramaic). TQL (TEKEL) indicates a first person idea of weighing and the found wanting (unbalanced scales) idea is missing. Defining UPHARSIN (W PRSYN) as they do is difficult since the kingdom portion is assumed and not explicit in the text, and there is nothing in the text - no words - that indicate either the Medes or the Persians. But as a general translation we can accept the versions that we see in English Bibles today.
Now the conclusion to the story is the one that gives Archaeologists and Historians a problem. Verse 31 tells us, in the King James Version, "And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." There were a people in Iran called the Medes, and there were kings named Darius, but not Kings of Mede named Darius, and all of the other Darius types lived in very different time periods of history. The whole thing can be cleared up by a fresh translation into Aramaic:
[Just furnishing the source in Aramaic here in order to keep it short:]
w = and, also
dry (DRY in Hebrew) to scatter, to disperse
'ws (WSh in Hebrew) = advisor, supporting members of royal court
mdy' = escape, freedom (Median in Aramaic would be mdy not this mdya).
md = since, after, because
'h = now then, is it not?, here, look!
qbl = accuser, to have a complaint againts, to confront in complaint, adversary, darkness, gloom
mlkwt' = kingdom, realm, kingship, reign. BUT:
mlk = to reign, to advise, give counsel to, to persuade, to promise
wt' = vulture (scavengers that eat dead meat), hawk (aggressive predators that go after live prey), or another large, unclean bird.
kbr = the Kebar river, aka Chebar Canal, near Nippur in Iraq. Nippur was one of the seats of pagan worship in ancient Mesopotamia, home to a large library and many great scholars, known for education and learning. The big leagues as far as councillors and scholars of that day.
šbw = does mean the number seven, but also: a precious stone, a gem of incredible value
n = this very, here [there]
šty = sixty, but also to drink, to be irrigated, absorb water, drunkard, feasting, drinker
n = this very, here [there]
w = and, also, too, like
tr = a small water bird, or turtledove
tyn = urine.
Rather than a Darius, who doesn't appear in the historical records, we have:
And they scattered, disbursed, these advisors & supporting members of the royal court,
Escaped to freedom;
Since, were they not?, being accused, having to confront complaints against them?,
That council of Vultures and Predators
To the Kebar River region, of precious gems, the very same,
Where they became drunk absorbing the waters and being irrigated there,
like small water birds in urine.
What Daniel was trying to tell us is that the "advisors" of King Belshazzar, who could not understand the message on the wall written in Aramaic (they spoke Elamite, as Persians), and were not very bright to begin with, were big fish in his kingdom. Upon the King's loss of his throne, they escaped in a group to freedom. They migrated to Nippur, where these council of Vultures and Predators discovered that, compared to the scholars of priceless value that lived in that home to scholarship, they were now as tiny as small water birds in comparison, and they swam in urine, rather than the divine waters of the pools dedicated to the pagan gods of Nippur.
More details, and certainly more interesting than the traditional story, but there is one part of the story that had me puzzled, I must admit, for several years. And it concerns one of the enlightened ones of the Middle Ages that most people pay very little attention to (other than of course his works of art). And that's the famous artist known as Rembrandt. Rembrandt van Rijn, born Rembrandt Hamenszoon van Rijn, was a Dutch painter, born in Amsterdam, but he happened to be living in or very near the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam when he painted his version of "Belshazzar's Feast", featuring the king staring in awe as a semi-visible hand wrote the words upon the palace walls. His "advisors" were equally startled and could not translate the message, and so Daniel was called in.
Rembrandt tells us that he approached a senior Rabbi from the Jewish Quarter to help him with the Hebrew phase he wished to use in his painting. What he received was the message in Hebrew, but with the final character in the phrase changed from a "n" or nun, as we normally find in the Hebrew text, and we saw in the PRSYN from above, to the letter "t" or tsade in Hebrew. Please take my word for it - no Rabbi, and especially not one of the top ones in Amsterdam, would make that type of mistake.
Modern Art Scholars, Historians, heck, scholars of all type, have been puzzled over this for hundreds of years. I was puzzled as well until I began to learn how to read and write in Aramaic. Another thing that the Rabbi and Rembrandt did, was to place the letters in a funny order. Rather than horizontal lines running from top to bottom, that were read from right to left, he painted it to be read in vertical rows from right to left.
Rather than MNA MNA TQL W PRSYN, his new rendition gives us:
S W T M N
Y P Q N N
Z R L A A
Here is a copy of his painting with that strange word order painted in:
53521
What? Yes, this first intrigued me many years ago. Why did they do this? Obviously it is a message, but how do we decipher it?
Well, it is in Aramaic, and it is from the Book of Daniel, or in other words the same source, same text, but this new word order and the change of the final letter gives us a new meaning with additional information not found in the Biblical text. But since it was furnished by a Rabbi, we have to accept that there is some truth to it.
Here is that translation (reading each line right to left as is traditional in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc):
mmt = manner of Death. Wow, we're off to a good start. Modern scholars have no idea of what happened to King Belshazzar after he lost his kingdom.
ws = the name of a plant. Not specified which one.
nn = to lull to sleep
qpy = floating state, to float, to congeal in the chest.
a = with respect to, upon
'L = God. This is EL, Creator God of the Hebrews and god of the Canaanites as well.
rz = religious ritual, mystery, secret.
Which "plant" causes one to lull into a deep sleep, a floating state, and then to congeal in his chest? The plant known as Belladonna, used since ancient times to "help" someone to "quickly" reach the afterlife, especially in those in power who have lost the support of their "advisors" (Vultures).
So we have:
Manner of Death:
A plant lulled him to sleep, into a floating state, until it congealed in his chest.
With respect to God (whether or not this was at the command of Jehovah);
that will remain a mystery.
His Vultures, his advisors, appear to have helped him into the sleep from which one does not awaken, prior to their escape to settle in Nippur, where they became little water birds in the Temple pools.
And now we need to put Rembrandt on our list of "enlightened ones"; those who know the answers to some of the secrets that have eluded most of us for hundreds of years.
Now, what about that Bonus? Yes, I spoke of a bonus in the title. Well, you know, since I have studied Aramaic, I just had to examine some of the final words of Jesus Christ while he was on the Cross. They were, and could only have been, in Aramaic, one of the several languages that he spoke, due to the use of the verb šbq, which is in Aramaic and not found in either Hebrew or Greek [or Roman-Latin for that matter].
"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?" — Mark 15:34
Eloi. Aramaic ['l] = God. Technically EL, the name of the Creator God in Genesis. The oi ending is wy in Aramaic, meaning "woe, alas!" and thus perhaps it could be taken as Oh, El! and thus Oh, God!
Because of the Greek syntax, the translators took this as "my". And if it were a Greek saying it would be "my". But he spoke in Aramaic, and in Aramaic it would be Oh or Oh,Woe.
Something that we should consider is that the oi could be an "i" as in certain versions. This could indicate the first letter of the Aramaic alphabet [alaph], which in ancient Middle East cultures signified "the first, the principal, the one, the beginning", with, in Hebrew, Aleph-Tav being the first and last letters of their alphabet and meaning additionally "the first and the last" and Alpha Omega being the first and last of theirs, meaning the beginning and the end. Which would give us "EL (God) the One, or the One God, or God of the Beginnings".
Eloi/Eli is repeated.
Then lama: in Aramaic lama (lm') means: why? It also means lest, almost, except for, and indicates a question.
sabachthani
šbq = to leave, depart from, to leave something left over, to leave behind,
to abandon, leave alone, to permit, allow, to release, let free,
to be left, abandoned, (of an act) to be forgiven.
to be released of an obligation, one that releases, leaves behind
tny = to repeat. to repeat doing something; to repeat what has been learned, to be repeated, to teach a tannaitic tradition (a learned tradition).
I would take this as:
Oh! God!
Oh! EL, the One God!
Why? Why must I leave something left over (unfinished); only to repeat doing it?
And by this I mean Jesus was asking his Father, El, the One True God, why he was chosen to leave at that point, to return to Heaven, with work that he considered unfinished; with something that He felt was left to do? When he would only have to return and repeat doing it again - repeat his ministry on Earth?
And if that is not a confirmation, affirmation, of the promise of a Second Coming, it sure seems to come close in my opinion. Sometimes it is nice to do our own translations and receive as much of the truth as the text has to provide for us.
Happy Sunday. Jim
I've always been intrigued by the message that was said to have been written on the wall of the palace of King Belzhazzar and that was interpreted by Daniel when the king's advisors could not solve the puzzle. Today we have a popular idiom "The writing is on the wall", that suggests a portent of doom or misfortune, based on the story of Belshazzar's feast in the Book of Daniel.
I was not able to do much with the traditional translation since I had not studied Aramaic, which is the language Daniel wrote in, and was then translated into Hebrew and on into English and other languages. Recently I have had to become proficient in both Ancient Aramaic and Arabic writing, and especially Ancient South Arabic, and so I decided to take another look at it.
I'm not asking anyone to accept this as an alternative translation - the one that King James Version and others provide is fine for those that follow the Good Book. What I am proposing are alternate translations taken from the same words. And the reason for this is that, in many ancient Near Eastern cultures, the scribes would typically furnish two or even three different meanings for a verse, depending upon your level of expertise in the arts of transliteration and translation. The reason for this is simple - they wished to convey as much information as possible with a small number of words, and the fact that Aramaic, Arabic and Hebrew were all written without vowels, without spacing or punctuation of any kind, and without the splitting into verses that we accept today, made it easy for them to do so. Those with, as they say "eyes that see and ears that hear" could pick out this additional information - and the deeper you were into the culture the more you would receive.
I have uncovered the three meanings, and even more, in relation to the writing on the wall from Daniel Chapter 5, and even if you are not a believer you may appreciate the subtle use of encrypted message writing at that period some 2550 and more years ago. I will sincerely try to keep the technical stuff brief.
One of the things that bothered me about the traditional translation is this part: "That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean [Babylonian] king, was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom", in Daniel 5:30–31. As a historian I know that there was no "Darius the Mede", or at least none that was recorded anywhere, but I would like to believe Daniel's statement. It turns out that all of this is explained by the alternate meanings and the truth is that it was the result of a mis-translation of the traditional version. In all fairness, when the King James group did their translations, Aramaic was not completely known in the West, and much progress has been made in the past 25 years or so. Arabic was even less known in the West of that day - it was very difficult to secure qualified translators to help them.
Daniel Chapter 5 gives us the message the was written on the palace wall by a spirit: Daniel reads the words "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN" and interprets them for the king: "MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed ... and found wanting;" and "UPHARSIN", your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
That translation will work with the given characters, but there are three good alternative translations that provide quite a bit more information to confirm the story and set the historical record straight.
We have to ignore the transliteration into Roman of the early Christian writers and recognize these as they were written in the Aramaic and then Hebrew languages. By doing that we learn that these would have appeared in the Biblical text of the Hebrews as: MNA MNA TQL W PRSYN, except without spaces of any kind. The early Christians took TQL and wrote what it sounded like to them, and not the way that it was actually written. In some way we sould be thankful for this, since otherwise we would be struggling to pronounce the text. Without using the Hebrew text from the Massoretic rendering of the Bible, since it is a transliteration of a transliteration, I will give you the original, in Aramaic, and the meanings in that language (which Daniel wrote in, since he was a prisoner in Babylonia).
MNA is written mn' in Ancient Aramaic, with their apostrophe taking the place of the Hebrew A (ayin and aleph), which were included when vowels were added to the Hebrew Bible around 900 A.D., but which were silent and not pronounced originally - merely included for a break point in the singing of the words (the Rabbi sang the text in the Temple worship) and as a pronunciation aid.
mn' = weight in Aramiac, as well as a small coin - equal to a penny. But it also means: portions, part, a fragment, a member of a group, a degree, and to associate with. If we consider a penny as a portion, part or fragment of a larger monetary unit (say $1), these all fit into the same theme.
tql in Aramaic is translated as: to weight something, to evaluate, estimate, to balance. But it equally means: to stumble (fall, trip, error or blunder, a clumsy walk) and bumbler, to blunder, a blunderer. Other meanings for tql include to make a mistake or have trouble, to be burdensome, oppressive, to be sluggish, dull-witten, to burden someone with something and the weight of sin or iniquity. The same word in Aramaic is also devined as one who removes an obstacle to even the level of the field and figuratively to cause one to fall into sin, to become snagged with sin and fall or stumble into sinning.
All of these come from the Aramaic Dictionary Project, a peer-reviewed primary source for Aramaic.
W in Aramaic means and, also, so, then.
Prsy in Aramaic has several interesting meanings:
To uncover, to reveal, to put to shame in public, to be uncovered, revealed, to be exposed to shame, to be reviled in public.
Prsy is also the Aramaic word to define a Persian. Now Wiktionary and other sources tell us that King Belshazzar was a Chaldean (southern part of modern Iraq, ancient Sumeria), but that this is not confirmed but an estimate, and that his country of origin, and that of his Father, is unkown. And yet here we have Daniel clearing this up by telling us that he was Persian, from Iran in other words, and not from Iraq or Chaldea. Which may not seem that important in this instance, but as another clue towards the true origins of the two principal groups that make up the Hebrews and modern Jews, it is very much so.
So what are our three new bits of information that we can safely form from these consonants in Daniel?
1. Your portion or your degree (of guilt) has been weighed and evaluated then, Persian!
2. You and your oppressive associates have become entangled in Sin; it will be revealed and you will be exposed to public shame.
3. Your current value, your weight in silver, is equal to a lowly penny!
The problems with the traditional interpretation done by Biblical Scholars are as follows:
Yes, there is a MN in Aramaic that is defined as "to number", but it is not spelled exactly the same. There is no idea of "an end, ending" in mem nun aleph (MN' in Aramaic). TQL (TEKEL) indicates a first person idea of weighing and the found wanting (unbalanced scales) idea is missing. Defining UPHARSIN (W PRSYN) as they do is difficult since the kingdom portion is assumed and not explicit in the text, and there is nothing in the text - no words - that indicate either the Medes or the Persians. But as a general translation we can accept the versions that we see in English Bibles today.
Now the conclusion to the story is the one that gives Archaeologists and Historians a problem. Verse 31 tells us, in the King James Version, "And Darius the Mede took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old." There were a people in Iran called the Medes, and there were kings named Darius, but not Kings of Mede named Darius, and all of the other Darius types lived in very different time periods of history. The whole thing can be cleared up by a fresh translation into Aramaic:
[Just furnishing the source in Aramaic here in order to keep it short:]
w = and, also
dry (DRY in Hebrew) to scatter, to disperse
'ws (WSh in Hebrew) = advisor, supporting members of royal court
mdy' = escape, freedom (Median in Aramaic would be mdy not this mdya).
md = since, after, because
'h = now then, is it not?, here, look!
qbl = accuser, to have a complaint againts, to confront in complaint, adversary, darkness, gloom
mlkwt' = kingdom, realm, kingship, reign. BUT:
mlk = to reign, to advise, give counsel to, to persuade, to promise
wt' = vulture (scavengers that eat dead meat), hawk (aggressive predators that go after live prey), or another large, unclean bird.
kbr = the Kebar river, aka Chebar Canal, near Nippur in Iraq. Nippur was one of the seats of pagan worship in ancient Mesopotamia, home to a large library and many great scholars, known for education and learning. The big leagues as far as councillors and scholars of that day.
šbw = does mean the number seven, but also: a precious stone, a gem of incredible value
n = this very, here [there]
šty = sixty, but also to drink, to be irrigated, absorb water, drunkard, feasting, drinker
n = this very, here [there]
w = and, also, too, like
tr = a small water bird, or turtledove
tyn = urine.
Rather than a Darius, who doesn't appear in the historical records, we have:
And they scattered, disbursed, these advisors & supporting members of the royal court,
Escaped to freedom;
Since, were they not?, being accused, having to confront complaints against them?,
That council of Vultures and Predators
To the Kebar River region, of precious gems, the very same,
Where they became drunk absorbing the waters and being irrigated there,
like small water birds in urine.
What Daniel was trying to tell us is that the "advisors" of King Belshazzar, who could not understand the message on the wall written in Aramaic (they spoke Elamite, as Persians), and were not very bright to begin with, were big fish in his kingdom. Upon the King's loss of his throne, they escaped in a group to freedom. They migrated to Nippur, where these council of Vultures and Predators discovered that, compared to the scholars of priceless value that lived in that home to scholarship, they were now as tiny as small water birds in comparison, and they swam in urine, rather than the divine waters of the pools dedicated to the pagan gods of Nippur.
More details, and certainly more interesting than the traditional story, but there is one part of the story that had me puzzled, I must admit, for several years. And it concerns one of the enlightened ones of the Middle Ages that most people pay very little attention to (other than of course his works of art). And that's the famous artist known as Rembrandt. Rembrandt van Rijn, born Rembrandt Hamenszoon van Rijn, was a Dutch painter, born in Amsterdam, but he happened to be living in or very near the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam when he painted his version of "Belshazzar's Feast", featuring the king staring in awe as a semi-visible hand wrote the words upon the palace walls. His "advisors" were equally startled and could not translate the message, and so Daniel was called in.
Rembrandt tells us that he approached a senior Rabbi from the Jewish Quarter to help him with the Hebrew phase he wished to use in his painting. What he received was the message in Hebrew, but with the final character in the phrase changed from a "n" or nun, as we normally find in the Hebrew text, and we saw in the PRSYN from above, to the letter "t" or tsade in Hebrew. Please take my word for it - no Rabbi, and especially not one of the top ones in Amsterdam, would make that type of mistake.
Modern Art Scholars, Historians, heck, scholars of all type, have been puzzled over this for hundreds of years. I was puzzled as well until I began to learn how to read and write in Aramaic. Another thing that the Rabbi and Rembrandt did, was to place the letters in a funny order. Rather than horizontal lines running from top to bottom, that were read from right to left, he painted it to be read in vertical rows from right to left.
Rather than MNA MNA TQL W PRSYN, his new rendition gives us:
S W T M N
Y P Q N N
Z R L A A
Here is a copy of his painting with that strange word order painted in:
53521
What? Yes, this first intrigued me many years ago. Why did they do this? Obviously it is a message, but how do we decipher it?
Well, it is in Aramaic, and it is from the Book of Daniel, or in other words the same source, same text, but this new word order and the change of the final letter gives us a new meaning with additional information not found in the Biblical text. But since it was furnished by a Rabbi, we have to accept that there is some truth to it.
Here is that translation (reading each line right to left as is traditional in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc):
mmt = manner of Death. Wow, we're off to a good start. Modern scholars have no idea of what happened to King Belshazzar after he lost his kingdom.
ws = the name of a plant. Not specified which one.
nn = to lull to sleep
qpy = floating state, to float, to congeal in the chest.
a = with respect to, upon
'L = God. This is EL, Creator God of the Hebrews and god of the Canaanites as well.
rz = religious ritual, mystery, secret.
Which "plant" causes one to lull into a deep sleep, a floating state, and then to congeal in his chest? The plant known as Belladonna, used since ancient times to "help" someone to "quickly" reach the afterlife, especially in those in power who have lost the support of their "advisors" (Vultures).
So we have:
Manner of Death:
A plant lulled him to sleep, into a floating state, until it congealed in his chest.
With respect to God (whether or not this was at the command of Jehovah);
that will remain a mystery.
His Vultures, his advisors, appear to have helped him into the sleep from which one does not awaken, prior to their escape to settle in Nippur, where they became little water birds in the Temple pools.
And now we need to put Rembrandt on our list of "enlightened ones"; those who know the answers to some of the secrets that have eluded most of us for hundreds of years.
Now, what about that Bonus? Yes, I spoke of a bonus in the title. Well, you know, since I have studied Aramaic, I just had to examine some of the final words of Jesus Christ while he was on the Cross. They were, and could only have been, in Aramaic, one of the several languages that he spoke, due to the use of the verb šbq, which is in Aramaic and not found in either Hebrew or Greek [or Roman-Latin for that matter].
"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?" — Mark 15:34
Eloi. Aramaic ['l] = God. Technically EL, the name of the Creator God in Genesis. The oi ending is wy in Aramaic, meaning "woe, alas!" and thus perhaps it could be taken as Oh, El! and thus Oh, God!
Because of the Greek syntax, the translators took this as "my". And if it were a Greek saying it would be "my". But he spoke in Aramaic, and in Aramaic it would be Oh or Oh,Woe.
Something that we should consider is that the oi could be an "i" as in certain versions. This could indicate the first letter of the Aramaic alphabet [alaph], which in ancient Middle East cultures signified "the first, the principal, the one, the beginning", with, in Hebrew, Aleph-Tav being the first and last letters of their alphabet and meaning additionally "the first and the last" and Alpha Omega being the first and last of theirs, meaning the beginning and the end. Which would give us "EL (God) the One, or the One God, or God of the Beginnings".
Eloi/Eli is repeated.
Then lama: in Aramaic lama (lm') means: why? It also means lest, almost, except for, and indicates a question.
sabachthani
šbq = to leave, depart from, to leave something left over, to leave behind,
to abandon, leave alone, to permit, allow, to release, let free,
to be left, abandoned, (of an act) to be forgiven.
to be released of an obligation, one that releases, leaves behind
tny = to repeat. to repeat doing something; to repeat what has been learned, to be repeated, to teach a tannaitic tradition (a learned tradition).
I would take this as:
Oh! God!
Oh! EL, the One God!
Why? Why must I leave something left over (unfinished); only to repeat doing it?
And by this I mean Jesus was asking his Father, El, the One True God, why he was chosen to leave at that point, to return to Heaven, with work that he considered unfinished; with something that He felt was left to do? When he would only have to return and repeat doing it again - repeat his ministry on Earth?
And if that is not a confirmation, affirmation, of the promise of a Second Coming, it sure seems to come close in my opinion. Sometimes it is nice to do our own translations and receive as much of the truth as the text has to provide for us.
Happy Sunday. Jim