Aramaic Word of the Day - ܐܒܐ (Abba) - Father
- Andre Moubarak
- Oct 14
- 3 min read
I remember one evening as i was walking through the olive groves of Gethsemane just before sunset. It is a stone through from my house in the old City, i am used to walk around the city 3 to 5 miles each day, just to gather myself and have time with the Lord. I remember that evening the air was thick with the fragrance of crushed olives and dust, noises of the cars engines specially at night is so vivid, you can hear them from the garden even you can recognize how they speed because of the brakes sounds that they make, it is a complete chaos outside. But trying to have some time to pray and focusing on the golden light danced across the ancient trees some over two thousand years old, their twisted trunks like silent witnesses to agony and prayer, despite of all the distractions surrounding me.
Standing there, I could almost hear Yeshua’s whispered Aramaic as He fell to His knees: “Abba, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” (Matthew 26:39). That word Abba (ܐܒܐ)echoed through the grove like the heartbeat of divine intimacy.
To our modern, Western ears, “Abba” often sounds like “Daddy,” a sentimental nickname used by small children. But this soft translation does not do justice to the gravity and depth the word carried in Yeshua’s tongue. In Aramaic, ܐܒܐ (Abba) comes from the root אב (av), meaning “source,” “protector,” or “origin.” It was a word used by both children and grown disciples when addressing their fathers with reverent affection. It carried warmth, yes but also authority, lineage, and belonging. When Yeshua prayed “Abba,” He was not speaking childishly; He was expressing full surrender, intimacy within obedience. The Western world often separates love from reverence, but the Semitic heart holds both together tenderness without losing awe, submission without losing closeness. This reminded me of my father he was a tough police man with a gentle Heart, he had so much authority that we feared him in a righteous way, the fear that makes you want to have a relationship and talk and learn and share your heart and serve your father out of Love and gentleness, that was my Father Yousef.
This is the cultural bridge we often miss. In Western spirituality, prayer can become transactional requests sent upward, answers expected downward. But in the Aramaic world, to call God Abba was to locate yourself within the household of His care and compassion embracing your pain, holding you up when you feel low. . It was not about asking first, but belonging first. The phrase “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15) was the early believers’ declaration of identity they were no longer outsiders begging for favor, but sons and daughters speaking the family language of trust. When Paul uses the Aramaic Abba even in his Greek letters, he’s intentionally preserving that Semitic intimacy that no translation could contain.
As I looked around Gethsemane that evening, I noticed how the olive press still stood nearby. The name “Gethsemane” itself means “Gat Shemanim”, “the place of oil pressing.” It struck me that Yeshua’s “Abba” prayer came precisely where the olives were crushed to produce oil, symbolizing the anointing born out of surrender. In Aramaic thought, pressure and prayer are inseparable the deeper the crushing, the purer the oil. The more you are crushed the more anointing you will have in your life. When Yeshua said, “Not My will, but Yours be done,” He was teaching His disciples the truest meaning of Abba: not a word of comfort alone, but of costly trust.
So, when you whisper “Abba” in your own moments of weariness or confusion, remember—you are not speaking to a distant God, but to the One who calls you His own. The same Abba who heard Yeshua’s cry in Gethsemane hears yours in the middle of your struggle. And as the olive yields its richest oil under pressure, so your faith will yield its purest worship in surrender.
Discover more about the Aramaic heart of Scripture at: www.twinsbiblicalacademy.com
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