ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – EATING AND DRINKING – ‘ECHOL VASHATA’   אכל  ושתא  Aleph Kap Lamed   Vav Shin Taw Aleph

Matthew 24:37: “But as the days of Noe [were], so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (38) For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,”

I remember as a child hearing my Baptist preachers talk about how terrible the world was and how soon the coming of Jesus would be. They often quoted this verse and said: “Today it is just like in Noah’s day, people are eating, drinking and giving in marriage, the return of the Lord is close.”  I could not help but wonder: “Didn’t people always eat, drink and get married? And why is that so bad?”  Well, obviously I was just a child of little brain and my preachers were smart enough to understand this, at least I think they were. What they likely meant was that people were busy going about their lives that they never expected there would be an abrupt end to everything.  

However, went looking at this in the Aramaic I wonder if maybe Jesus was giving an even deeper picture of life before the flood.  In Aramaic the word for eating is ‘achol which in its Semitic root means to consume and absorbing. Your body takes that Big Mac and when you eat it, it turns it into strength, power or energy.  What is in that Big Mac that does not turn to energy is, well you can guess what happens to that.  The point is that ‘echol goes beyond just eating, it is consuming something and transforming it to benefit you and eliminating what is not beneficial to you. It doesn’t have to be food.  It could be leader like a boss, politician, teacher or pastor. Someone who seeks such control over you as to benefit themselves. When you are no longer a benefit, you are eliminated.  The word drinking is shatha’ which in its Semitic root means to flow as water flowing down your throat.  But it doesn’t have to applied to just drinking. It is also used for someone who just flows with the tide so to speak.  That person who doesn’t make waves.  That person who is told by his boss to tell the client he is at the Cubs game when in fact you know he hates the Cubs, baseball and is in fact sitting in his office at that moment. But that person will lie because his boss told him to.  That is a shatha’.  We call it turning a blind eye. Putting ‘echol and shatha together you could say eating and drinking or letting some strong person exert power over you for his own benefit causing to will bend or forget your own morals and/or integrity. 

Then there is marrying and giving in marriage.  What’s the difference, getting marriage or giving in marriage?  Actually, the first word in this verse that is used for marriage is nasan which in the Aramaic means to take.  It is used when a man says: “I am taking myself a bride.”  Hence translators will assume it is a reference to marriage.  However, nasan also means to abandon.  Then the Aramaic has a word that is not found in the Greek.  It is the word ‘anatta which is a reference to women with no morals or who are ceremonially unclean.  In other words women with no moral values would marry and abandon, both their husbands and their children.  An ‘anatta is a wife and mother who has not moral values.  If the mother has no moral values, what happens to the children, they grow up with no moral values. 

This phrase “giving in marriage,” is a little odd in Aramaic. The word for giving is yahav.  This is strange because the word in Aramaic for giving is matla,  Yahav means to means both to give and to give back. It is used for both receiving and returning a burden or trouble.  The word used here for husband is rarely used for a husband. Your words in Aramaic for husband are isha and ba’al. Ba’al literally means evil and refers to a bad or abusive husband and the word isha is for a good and loving husband. The word used here is gavar which means a mighty warrior or a great leader or person. It is also used for a murderer. 

So let’s go back to the beginning and maybe this verse is telling us that before the flood people were no only just living their lives as if they did not anticipate a sudden ending. We might render this as: “For as in the days that were before the flood they were consuming or using relationships with each other for their own purposes and those who did not fit their agenda they eliminated.  Those who did not agree but were forced to follow forgot their morals and flowed with the times. Woman had not moral principles and would abandon their husbands and children to seek their own pleasures and mighty men would use their power to bring a burden or trouble to others, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,”

So is that what it will be like when the Lord returns?  Sounds like today, but then again sounds like the way it has always been. There is one unique factor if you sum this all up to a common denominator.  But that is a deeper study which I have posted on our All Access subscription site.