The Language of Judea

The Language Jerusalem Heard

At the temple, the chief captain asked Paul, “Canst thou speak Greek?” (Acts 21:37). Paul could. But when he turned to the crowd of Jerusalem, “he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue” (Acts 21:40) — and they fell silent:

ACTS 22:2 — KJV

And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence.

Greek was the language of the soldier and the official. Hebrew was the language of the people of Jerusalem.

”In the Hebrew Tongue”

The writers repeatedly mark names and places as Hebrew:

• Bethesda, “which is called in the Hebrew tongue” (John 5:2).

• Gabbatha, “in the Hebrew” (John 19:13), and Golgotha, “which is called in the Hebrew” (John 19:17).

• The title on the tree, “written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin” (John 19:20) — Hebrew named first, the language of the land.

• Abaddon and Armageddon, “in the Hebrew tongue” (Revelation 9:11; 16:16).

Paul calls himself “an Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5). The scrolls recovered near the Dead Sea, copied in the centuries around the first coming, are mostly Hebrew. Hebrew was a living, written language when the apostles walked Judea.

Words the Greek Could Not Let Go

A translator renders most words into the new language, but some words carry so much weight that he leaves them as they are. The Greek New Testament is full of them — and several appear in letters sent to Greek-speaking cities:

• Abba — Father (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).

• Amen — truly (H543). Yahushua opened His sayings with it, “Verily, verily,” a usage found nowhere in Greek literature.

• Hosanna — save now (Matthew 21:9; Psalm 118:25).

• Sabaoth — hosts (Romans 9:29; James 5:4).

• Maranatha — our Master, come (1 Corinthians 16:22), written to Corinth.

• Talitha cumi, Ephphatha, Rabboni (Mark 5:41; 7:34; John 20:16).

• Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (Matthew 27:46) — the cry from the tree, in the words He actually spoke.

Several of these arrive with the writer stopping to explain them for a Greek reader — a pattern traced name by name in Witness Seven.

Two Objections Answered

“Some Hebrews spoke Greek.” Acts 6:1 names “Grecians” in the Jerusalem assembly. The verse proves the opposite of what it is used for. Luke names them as a separate group, set against “the Hebrews,” because they were not the norm. The Hebrews were the body; the Greek-speakers were the minority that had to be named.

“Paul wrote to Greek cities.” His letters went to assemblies founded in synagogues, built on Jews and Torah-keeping proselytes (Acts 17:1–4; 18:4). He wrote to Rome, “I speak to them that know the law” (Romans 7:1). He left Abba and Maranatha untranslated in letters to Rome, Galatia, and Corinth. Whatever language carried a letter, the mind that composed it was trained “at the feet of Gamaliel… according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers” (Acts 22:3).

One of eight witnesses in a single case. The Language of Judea is the testimony of Scripture itself — the language Jerusalem heard, the Hebrew it wrote on its places, and the Hebrew words the Greek could not let go. The eight together make the case framed in the hub study, Spoken in Hebrew.