ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – SAFE KEEPING – PUQEDNANA’ פוקדנא

John 3:12: “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you [of] heavenly things?”

John 13:35: “By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.”

I remember having a conversation with a man who belonged to a religious group that insisted they were the one true church and all the other churches were false churches. I asked him how he knew he belonged to this elite group and he quoted John 13:35: “By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples if you love one another.” Then he went on to say how his church loved each other regardless of who or what they were. I questioned whether they had cornered the market on this loving each other business. I told him that the church I belonged to got together and loved each other, other denominations get together and love each other, other religions get together and love each other, political groups get together and love each other, social groups get together and love each other, athletic teams get together and love each other, atheist get together and love each other for crying out loud. How was their group any different. He simply said: “Oh, they don’t love each other as we do.” He then started getting a little huffy with me and started to express some very unloving things toward me.

Yet, from the Greek text, he was not really wrong. The Greek preposition en does have the idea of among or from within or inside. That preposition would suggest that Jesus was talking exclusively of the love the disciples would have for each other. This also bears out when you examine this in the Aramaic. But why would that be so special when all groups get together and love each.

First, let’s quote this verse correctly. It does not say they will know you are Christians by your love, but that “you are my disciples.” Pay attention to the previous verse: John 13:34: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” What so new about the commandment to love one another, is that not in Leviticus 19:18 to love your neighbor? The most common explanation is that Jesus was adding an eleventh commandment. To me, that is just trying to explain away a difficult passage. For one thing, he has added to that commandment “as I have loved you.” For one thing in the Aramaic, the word for the commandment is not ma’amar which is the word for commandment when speaking of the ten commandments. The word Jesus used is puqedana’ from the root word puq. This is not so much a command as it is a trust, giving something to someone for safekeeping. Jesus was talking about leaving and/or His coming death. But that may not be how the disciples took this conversation. Disciples did not stay with their masters for a lifetime. Many only stayed with their masters for three years. The idea of discipleship was mentoring. They would be mentored for a few years and then move on to find disciples of their own to mentor.

It was most likely in this context that the disciples would interpret what Jesus was discussing. They had been with Jesus for three years now and they knew it would soon be time for them to graduate so to speak and find disciples of their own to continue this movement that Jesus started. We tend to look on Jesus and his disciples like the start of our modern-day church model. We bring people into the church, they get saved and we train them in the Christian walk. Most churches stop right there. The object is to add numbers to the churches, make the churches grow and the pastor continues to teach everyone. The first-century idea was to make disciples. To train them and when they were trained to go out and make disciples of their own and start their little congregation so to speak. They take over the duties of teaching, they do not bring them into their original circle to continue learning under the founder. In a way that is how our denominations developed. A pastor starts a small church and as it grows certain individuals are ordained through that church to go out and start their own little congregation following the teachings of that leader. Invariably conflicts will arise. One the master or founder has passed away who will succeed him? Doctrines become more detailed and specific and conflicts arise over the interpretation of the founder’s teachings. There are angry exchanges, each accusing the other or not following their founder’s teachings and wishes. Splits occur and new denominations are formed, with hidden and sometimes even open hostilities towards the splitting group. Relationships are broken and brothers and sisters who shared a common fellowship end up not speaking to each other. Then there are jealousies. One disciple may be more successful than the other. He may successful disciple may brag on his successes and the less successful disciple, rather than celebrating the increase in their movement will be jealous of the other’s success, will feel the other is bragging or putting them down. Elites will arise in a movement and the more charismatic the leader the more popular he will become. There may be a tendency to build little power circles and anyone not a part of that power will feel or actually be excluded. All of this and much more will be viewed by the world and give the outsiders only more reason to believe that this group is no different than any other. They fight among themselves, bear grudges and jealousies, and elite behavior like any other group. Pastors become dictators and glory in their positions. They may even use their positions to take advantage of their congregations. All of this reflects on their founder, Jesus Christ.

Yet, Jesus loved his disciples equally. He loved them in their failures, their sin, and pride. He loved them when they fought with each other as to who would be the successor, who was Jesus’s favorite. But Jesus had no favorite and He made sure they understood this. Jesus entrusted pug, them with this love that he demonstrated to them for the previous three years. Not racham love but simple, everyday ‘ahav love. A love that the world did not see among religious leaders.

In the first century as today, religious leaders did not exactly love each other. There were rivalries, jealousies, and hatred between religious groups and leaders. Many Pharisees and Sadducees and many in the Sanhedrin hated Jesus and in fact, hated him so much they had Him crucified on trumped-up charges. Although they would preach love it was obvious to everyone that they themselves did not demonstrate love to anyone who would disagree with them. In fact, you find such conflicts beginning to arise among the disciples. So just observing people of faith who differ in such things as the resurrection, relationships with the secular government, relationships with those who tend to be more popular or have larger followings without angry words or expressions of jealousy would be enough to convince some outsiders that maybe there was something special to the message of God Jehovah and Jesus.

Another reason that Jesus uses the Aramaic word chav rather than racham. Jesus asked Nicodemus: John 3:12: “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you [of] heavenly things?” Jesus was saying that even an earthly love like ‘ahav/chav is capable of loving someone who is more successful than you are, richer than you are, teaching doctrines different than yours, and even saying horrible things about you. If you can’t understand the limits of earthly ‘ahav/chav, how would you ever even begin to understand racham the love of heaven, of God, the love that created this world?