ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI . These Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] words occur in Mark 15:34 , being an Eng. transliteration from the Greek. The underlying Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] would be Elahi, Elahi, l e ma shabaqtani . The ô in Eloi is probably a local pronunciation of â as aw or ô , as in some Syriac dialects. Dalman, however, maintains that our Lord spoke the first two words in Hebrew and the other two in Aramaic. In this case Eloi represents the Heb. Elohai = ‘my God.’ For sabachthani the Codex Sinaiticus reads sabaktani , which may be the original reading. It is more correct; but on that very account it may be a gloss. Lama for Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] l e ma = ‘for what?’ ‘why?’ has many variants in Gr. MSS, as lema, lamma, lima .
In the parallel passage in Matthew 27:46 we find Eli, Eli (though Cod. Sin. reads Eloi and B Eloei ). Eli is a Heb. word, here, as elsewhere, borrowed in Aramaic. The Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] word for ‘forsake’ is sh e baq for which the Heb. equivalent is ‘azabh . In Heb. ‘hast thou forsaken me?’ would be ‘azabhtani . This explains the reading of Codex D [Note: Deuteronomist.] , zaphthanei , which some officious literary scribe substituted for sabachthani , both in Mt. and Mk.
J. T. Marshall.