Abba—Father

Dr. Ronald B. Allen

Dallas Theological Seminary
10 June 2016 (slightly revised)

The account of Jesus’ anguish on the Mount of Olives on the night of His betrayal and
arrest is profoundly moving. It was in this context that the Bible first presents the word “Abba,
Father”1 as a term of deep emotion and profound meaning. Mark’s account of the events
electrifies the reader:
He went a little farther, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the
hour might pass from Him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You.
Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will” (Mark
14:35, 36, NKJV).2
The setting is unforgettable. Jesus has just celebrated the Passover Seder with His
disciples. Having sung Psalm 118, the last of the Passover Psalms,3 Jesus and His disciples left
the upper room. In darkness that mirrored His increasingly sorrowful mood, He led them on a
pathway down the steep slope of the Kidron Valley and then made His way up the opposite bank
into the orchard of olive trees on the western slope of the hill known as the Mount of Olives.
“Gethsemane” (v. 32) refers to the huge olive press in the midst of the orchard. The
Hebrew word for “press” is ‫( ּגַת‬gat); Hebrew ‫ׁשמֶן‬
ֶ (shemen)is the word for olive “oil.” Thus,
“Gethsemane” means the place of the olive oil press. As olives were crushed to release their oil,
so the Savior was being “crushed” by the intensity of pain and anxiety of that awful night.4
Jesus’ words to Peter, James and John—His inner circle—are pathos-laden: “My soul is
exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch” (Mark 14:34).
A note in the Nelson Study Bible reads:
14:34 Exceedingly sorrowful: The crushing realization of having to bear the sin
of the world and to lose even temporarily the fellowship of God the Father was nearly

The word appears elsewhere in the New Testament only in Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6.

2
All Bible quotations in this paper are from the New King James Version ( NKJV) unless otherwise noted.
3

See Mark 14:26, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” The last psalm
of the Passover Seder is Psalm 118.
4

The Hebrew word ‫( ׇמׁשִי ַח‬māšîaḥ) “the anointed one,” from ‫( ׇמׁשַ ח‬māšaḥ) “to anoint,” gives us the term
Messiah. Thus, the place of the crushing of the olives (Gethsemene) was a powerful symbol of the crushing of the
Savior, whose very title Messiah means to be anointed (symbolically or physically) with the oil produced by the
crushing of those olives. And all was in the context of an orchard of olive trees. “Garden” in the Bible (Heb. ‫ּגַן‬, gan)
means “orchard,” not flowers or vegetables. Think of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2) where all was about trees and
their fruit, most permitted and some prohibited.
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more than Jesus’ soul could bear. His extreme spiritual anguish must have affected His
mental, emotional, and physical condition as well.5
His sleepy disciples soon succumbed to fatigue and wine; all but Jesus were sleeping.
Then it was He collapsed in agony and called out to God using the word Abba.
Observe what Jesus said. “Take this cup away from Me!” (Mark 14:36).
Earlier, during the setting of the celebrative feast, Jesus and His disciples were reclining,
each on his left side, on cushions around the outer line of the triclinium, the u-shaped low table.
They had celebrated the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in the first half of the Passover
recitation, and had sung the two psalms that come just before the meal, Psalms 113 and 114. The
first is a grand Psalm of Descriptive Praise that speaks of the demands on the people of God to
praise Yahweh for His incomparable glory and His stooping grace. The second, Psalm 114, is a
playful Psalm of Declarative Praise, a poem of consummate joy celebrating Yahweh’s
deliverance of Israel from Egypt.
After the meal, our Lord instituted what we call today “the Lord’s Supper.” He took the
celebrative Afiqoman6 (the special broken half of matzah that was set aside at the beginning of
the meal, and used it to symbolize His body that would be broken. Similarly, He took the cup of
wine7 and used it to symbolize His blood which shortly would be shed. Both the bread and the
wine say the same thing—they both point to the death the Savior was to experience as the means
for the salvation of His people.
As is common in Hebrew Scripture,8 the use of two symbols to indicate the significance
of one thing is akin to the Torah principle of “two or three witnesses.”9 By having two symbols,
bread and wine, both pointing to the same reality—the sacrificial Atonement of the death of
Jesus, the point is made so very powerfully.
What a setting! When Yahweh delivered Israel from Egypt the only suffering was borne
by the Egyptians who were seeking to kill the Hebrew refugees. But when the Lord Jesus
brought about our salvation—all the suffering was borne by Him!
Following the Passover meal and the establishment of the Lord’s Table, the rest of the
(now scripted) celebration at the Seder points forward to the coming of Messiah and the

5
Note on Mark 14:34, Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald B. Allen, H. Wayne House, eds., The Nelson Study Bible
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 1674-75.
6

Sometimes spelled Afiqomen, but the Hebrew word seems to be spelled with an “a” in the last syllable:
‫אֲ פִיקוֺמָן‬.
7

Perhaps this refers to the cup reserved for Elijah, as the Greek text uses the article, “the cup.” Wine in
Bible times was always red; the color comes from the skins which were always in the fermenting must. The red
color of the wine made a strong association with the red color of blood.

8
Examples include the two messages from Yahweh to Abraham after the binding of Isaac (Gen 22:11-14;
15-18), and the two tables of the commandments, which we now know were both complete, written on both
sides, and were duplicates of each other (Exod 32:15; 34:4, 28-29).
9

See Deut. 19:15; compare Matt 18:16.

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Kingdom of God on earth.10 During this section, four psalms are key: Psalms 115-118. In Psalm
116 there is a powerful section that Jesus must have made much of with His disciples. With His
cup raised, He, the host, would have sung:
What shall I render to the LORD
For all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
Now in the presence of all His people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of His saints (Psalm 116:12-15, NKJV, bold font added).

Imagine this! Jesus had held up His cup of wine, which He had already identified as a
symbol of the death He would die. And He had done this in the presence of His disciples—his
witnesses. Now, later in the Garden, while all alone, He lifted His strong right arm above his
head as He lay prone with His face on the ground and He held His hand as though He were still
holding the cup from hours ago. Then He whispered in anguish beyond description and with
emotions we cannot imagine, words that must have caused heaven’s angels to blush, “Take this
cup away from Me.”

This is the setting of Jesus’ anguished words, “Abba, Father.”

Fast forward to our times.

A godly pastor is on the plane for the long flight home from his first trip to Israel. He has
gathered a lovely group of people and has presented devotional talks from time to time. But all of
the actual teaching on the tour has been done by his licensed Israeli guide, a charming, endearing
man who has quite won the affections of the group. The group is flying home on Saturday. This
is the longest day in their lives! The pastor has known something from the beginning, but now
the reality hits him. Tomorrow is Sunday! He needs to preach! Tired as he will be, it is still going
to be Sunday! What will his weary mind and exhausted body be able to do?
Yikes!
Then a thought comes to him. At one point their charming guide told the group that he
was going to be away from his family when he was guiding this group of Christian pilgrims.
“But,” he said, “when I arrive home after my time with you, my three young children are going
to come running out of our house shouting to me, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’” Then he says, “And
they will not be saying “Daddy” in English, of course. They will be saying it in Hebrew.” With a
practiced wink he says, “And do you know how we say ‘Daddy’ in Hebrew? We say ‘Abba’ for
10

The “scripted” edition is now called the Haggadah, which means “recitation.” I use an orthodox Jewish
edition published by Artscroll Mesorah Publications in Brooklyn, The Family Haggadah.
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Daddy!” Then he adds, “Now we Jews would never do this, but we understand that in your Bible
Jesus speaks to God saying ‘Abba.’ I guess that means that Jesus felt He could call God
‘Daddy.’”
All the people gushed at this. And so had the pastor. Now he has it! His sermon will be
on how Christians can do something that Jewish people cannot do. We can call God “Daddy.”
We can say “Dad.” We can say “Pop.” We can say “Da Da.” We can use any term for God we
find to be most endearing and personal. For Paul says in Romans that we may call Him Abba
(Rom 8:15).
The cramped coach seat becomes more comfortable as he has been served a glass of wine
on his tray (for he is a liberated DTS grad), and he sketches out his warm sermon notes that he
knows will enthrall his loving congregation.
And so continues the false ideas about this very important word.

Back to the Garden—and the Facts.

The Experience of Jesus in His anguish in the Garden is far too significant to be
trivialized by the banality of modern casual language. In the ancient world people did not have
the diminutive terms we have in many modern languages, nor would trivial language ever be
appropriate when speaking to the Creator of the Universe, the Father of Glory.
So what about Abba meaning “Daddy” in Hebrew? Does it have this meaning? Well it
does.
Today. But not then.
Modern Hebrew is the creation of one man! Think about that! This is something that
cannot be said, we believe, of any other language in the history of the world.
One man, Eliezer ben Yehuda (born in Luzhky, Lithuania on 7 January 1858, died in
Jerusalem on 16 December 1922) is personally responsible for the creation of the modern
Hebrew language as a means to facilitate the then-hoped for new state of Israel. His is a most
remarkable story. He took all the words in Hebrew Bible and searched for many more in rabbinic
writings. He then blended them with words borrowed from other languages, including Polish,
German, Russian as well as English and Romance languages. He modernized structure, verb use,
and grammar. He created the language used in Israel today. It is Hebrew. It is modern. It works
for the nation.
The point is this: the meaning and usage of words today in Tel Aviv may or may not
equate with meaning and usage in biblical times.
So today’s use of Abba for “Daddy” is correct. But it was an unknown idea in biblical
times.
The word Abba in the New Testament is not Hebrew! It is Aramaic.
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Here are the facts:

The basic Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic word for “father” is ‫’( ׇאב‬āb). “father”
A noun is shown to be definite in Biblical Hebrew with a prefixed ‫( ׇה‬hā). “the”
A noun is shown to be definite Biblical Aramaic with a suffixed ָ‫( א‬ā’). “the”
The Biblical Hebrew defined noun is ‫( ׇה ׇאב‬hā’āb). “the father.”
The Biblical Aramaic defined noun is ‫’( ׇא ׇּבא‬ābbā’). “the father.”

Thus, when Jesus said “Abba” in Aramaic He was saying “The Father,” The definite
article with the noun serves something like a “vocative,” a signal of direct address. But it is
significant that in each use of the word Abba in the New Testament (Mark 14:36, Rom 8:15 and
Gal 4:6), the Aramaic word is glossed in Greek with the Greek word for Father, with the definite
article (“The Father).”
In no case then, may one think that Jesus was using a modern diminutive term like
“Daddy.” He was not speaking Modern Hebrew, but first century Aramaic.
It is so remarkable that Mark goes out of his way to use the very Aramaic term Jesus
used. Most of Jesus’ teaching and conversation was in Aramaic—so what is the big deal here?
After all, Mark was writing in Greek for the very reason that most of his readers would not be
proficient in Aramaic. The proof of this is his translation of the Aramaic word “The Father” with
the Greek word “The Father.”
It seems that when Jesus was in a most personal moment of stress or anguish He would
revert to His “mother tongue,” Aramaic (see His translation of Psalm 22 into Aramaic on the
cross (see Mark 15:34).” The use of Aramaic words in the flow of Greek texts stresses the
personal stress of the speaker.
Abba as “Daddy” works in families in Tel Aviv—a city founded in 1909, about the time
that the modern language was being crafted by Ben Yehuda.
But Abba as “Daddy” does not fit the very adult anguish of Jesus in the Garden.
Nor should it be presented so to us today.

Back to the Garden

Picture again the Lord Jesus, face to the ground, right arm stretched to heaven with His
hand positioned as though He were still holding the cup as in the upper room (Psalm 116:13).
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But now He was begging Abba, Father, to allow Him to release the cup, to turn from His destiny,
to abandon His promise!
God can do anything!
There has to be another way!
Anything but the cross!
Anything but the distancing of Father.11
Imagine angels in heaven hushed in fear.
Then, after a long moment of despair, He gradually lowered His arm, unclenched His
hand, and in a gasp of acceptance He announced: “Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you
will.”
When His hand relaxed, angels “breathed” again.
When His arm came down, angels sang again.
When He said His words of compliance, our salvation was secured.

An appeal: Don’t reduce the power and significance of this text to the banality of
“Daddy Dear.”

Postscript
In the mid-1980s I was working as an advisor and a part of the creative team for
Maranatha! Music. One of the albums we produced in a series called “The Words of Worship,”
was titled “Abba: 10 Songs to the Father.” I just checked and it may be heard on You Tube. I
gave lectures to the composers, helped select the songs, and wrote the liner notes for the album (I
know, “What is an album?”). Chuck Fromm, the executive director of Maranatha! Music, was
the creative agent who set the whole thing in motion. Give it a listen!
I particularly love, “Abba, Father (We Give You Glory).” On You Tube, listen to the “long
version. Also, don’t miss, “My God and Father.”
You will hear the anguish of Jesus in the Garden! You will also wish to join the Savior in His
holy worship of Abba, Father.

11

The lamentive center of Psalm 22 (which Jesus chanted in Aramaic while on the cross) is a sense of the
distancing of the Father from the sufferer. See the opening words, “Why are You so far from helping Me?” His calls
to Father are “Be not far from Me” (v. 11) and “But You, O L ORD, do not be far from Me” (v. 19).
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