Dusty Phrases

Hi! Welcome to “Dusty Phrases.” You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.

For other examples, visit HERE:

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Aramaic:

ἐφφαθά (Ephphatha)

English:

Be opened

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This Aramaic statement is found in the Gospel of Mark in Chapter 7:

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³ And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. ³⁴ And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

This is one of the few miraculous events, done by Jesus, recorded only in Mark’s Gospel. It is often the case that the deeds of Jesus were recounted from different perspectives in multiple Gospel accounts.

The Gospel of Mark – as an aside – is the Gospel associated most with Peter. The early Church taught this Gospel was the written recordings of the teaching of Simon Peter, by his Scribe Mark. (If you’re interested in that topic, I’ll leave you a link HERE as a jumping off point.)

The passages in the Bible wherein Jesus’s words were recorded in Aramaic are generally remembered with particular reverence – both because they are the direct words spoken by the Lord, but also because there exists an idea that Mark, in choosing to tell us *that* word’s original language, out of all the others that could have been chosen, must have been purposeful in doing so. Not usurpingly, there are articles written about the deeper meaning of Ephphatha.

One such example is below: (excerpt via catholicexchange)

The Key to Jesus’ Ministry in One Word: ‘Ephphatha’

by Stephen Beale

[…]

A close reading of the text and meditation on the words confirms—opens up one might say—this deeper meaning of the story.

First, here is the key sentence from Mark 7:34, as recorded in the Revised Edition of the New American Bible: “Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).

This word order parallels the Greek, which is significant because the command Ephphatha! is most immediately addressed to the deaf man, as one interpreter points out. Although we learn soon in the next sentence that his ears have been opened, the word order gives the immediate impression that the man himself must in some sense be opened. This is how Benedicts reads it:

There is an inner closing, which covers the deepest core of the person, what the Bible calls the ‘heart.’ That is what Jesus came to ‘open,’ to liberate, to enable us to fully live our relationship with God and with others.

This conclusion is reinforced by one of the alternative meanings of the Greek word Mark uses to define ephphatha—dianoigō. Although the word has the generic meaning of to open, an additional meaning is to connect. (See this post here and this definition here.)

Yet another more specific meaning of that word tells us even more about what kind of opening Jesus asks of us. The word appears a total of eight times in the New Testament. The first and second instances are in the story of the blind man in Mark 7. Otherwise, with just one exception, the remaining uses of the word are all after the resurrection. In Luke 24 the eyes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus are opened to Jesus. They also realize that He has opened the Scriptures to them. A few verses later Jesus opens the understanding of the disciples in Jerusalem to the Scriptures.

In Acts this particular verb appears two more times in this spiritual sense, in the context of Paul’s ministry. In Acts 16:14, the heart of a woman is opened by the Lord. In Acts 17:3 Paul is described, in Christ-like fashion as opening the Scriptures in his ministry.

But there is actually a twofold opening. If we read closely and contemplatively the story in Mark, the text suggests that it is not only the deaf man who is “opened up.” Here is the verse again: “Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’

Note that, while the command is addressed most immediately to the deaf man, Jesus’ gaze in this scene is fixed not on the man he is healing but on heaven. Indeed, Jesus is not only opening up the man but He is petitioning the Father to open up the heavens. Here it is miraculous healing that is sought. But after the resurrection, very heaven itself has been opened up to us in quite a literal and profound way.

Perhaps now we can appreciate why Benedict considered this one obscure Aramaic word so important:

That is why I said that this little word, ‘Ephphatha—Be opened,’ sums up Christ’s entire mission. He became man so that man, made inwardly deaf and dumb by sin, would become able to hear the voice of God, the voice of love speaking to his heart, and learn to speak in the language of love, to communicate with God and with others.

Reflecting on this story today, we are compelled to ask ourselves, what is blocking our spiritual ears to hearing the word of God? What has stiffened our tongues so that we hesitate to respond fully in faith and love? Let us pray that Jesus opens our ears and mouths to the message of the gospel. Let us pray that Jesus opens heaven anew to us. Let us pray for all this knowing that Jesus has already opened up the heavens for us and even now is interceding for us in heaven.