ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – RETURNING INTO THE CLOUD – BA’A בעא Beth Ayin Aleph

John 14:15-17: “If ye love (racham) me, keep my commandments. (16) And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; (17) [Even] the Spirit (ruach) of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

I have often wondered about this verse. Jesus was saying that He would pray to the Father and He would send another Comforter. I follow the reasoning that we have Jesus introducing us to the Trinity but the idea of praying to the Father suggest He is talking to a separate being and then asking that a third being, totally separated from Him to be sent when He would not be around.

Yet, we must believe that Jesus was God Himself incarnate, in human flesh and the Spirit is part of this Godhead. In this case Jesus is going to heaven to be with the Father, He is praying to the Father to send another “comforter” to replace Him. No matter how you add it up, there are three separate beings and yet we are told by our preachers and teachers that there is only one God. No wonder the Muslims and Jews accuse us Christians of believing in multiple gods.

Ok, maybe I am making a desperate attempt to cling to the faith of my fathers which teaches a Triune God, so I only offer this to you for your consideration. I believe in the Trinity but only one God, still I won’t hold it against you if you don’t. At least hear me out.

First problem is this English word used here – pray. It is the word ba’a in Aramaic. This means to search, inquire, ask, and examine. In other words, it is a like an investigator seeking the truth. That is even worse, now this is saying that Jesus does not know everything the Father knows so He needs to interrogate the Father.

In a closer examination of this word, we find that it is linguistically related to the word ba’ah which means an intimacy, a joining together as one. Perhaps Jesus is not praying to a Being sitting off in some far off heaven in space, but to the who Father dwells within Him and He in the Father. At this moment the Father is being manifested in a human body as well as the God of the universe.

During Old Testament times the Shekinah glory, that presence of God that manifested love, nurturing, caring, mercy, forgiveness, and peace rested on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies contained the Ark of the Covenant upon which this special presence of God rested on the mercy seat, although His presence encompassed the entire earth. Jesus was sort of the Ark of the Covenant, the sweet presence of God that manifested love, nurturing, caring, mercy, forgiveness and peace. Yet the presence of God still encompassed the earth. When Jesus said he would ba’a the Father He said He would share an intimacy with the Father. His physical manifestation as the Shekinah glory would be rejoined with the father. I believe the best way to explain ba’a/ba’ah is to think of a tornado. A tornado is ultimately just a massive cloud from which a funnel extends and touches the ground while the cloud still encompasses the entire sky that one can see. When the funnel or extension of that storm cloud touches the ground it becomes a tornado. After it moves along the ground for a while it will retreat back into the cloud. When Jesus says that He will ba’a, which we render as pray, what He is saying is that He is just an extension of that massive storm cloud we call God that will constrict and we will be drawn back into that cloud to be one big cloud again without that extension. Yet this Big Cloud, the Father will send another. That word another in Aramaic is acherna which literally means one coming behind or the one following. In other words, there is another tornado forming from the Big Storm Cloud – The Father that will again touch the ground only it will not be a physical manifestation like Jesus in a human form but a spiritual manifestation living inside of each one of us.

You see, God cannot make His home here on this earth because of sin. His presence encompasses the earth, but He cannot make it His home. He can only live here on a working visa so to speak. But Jesus made it possible to cleanse that sin in us individually so that God’s home can be in our bodies. Did not Paul say in I Corinthians 3:16: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and [that] the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” Solomon built a home for God in the temple which was dedicated and consecrated to be pure so that like a home his love, nurturing, caring, mercy, forgiveness and peace would have a place on earth to call His home while His presence encompassed the earth. Today that temple dwells within each of us who have been made pure by the blood of Jesus Christ and the manifestation of that presence of God is what we call the Holy Spirit which is just another extension of that Big Cloud – The Father.

Jesus calls this acherna the one following Him a paraqalata. In Aramaic, this is a legal term for an advocate or defender. But as the word is used in the context of the word ba’a which is to investigate, paraqalata would have the use as it is used in the Targum (Aramaic translation of the Old Testament) in Job 33:23 for an interpreter of a message. In this case the role of the Comforter is that of one who brings comfort in the interpretation of the message of God.

When the disciples were troubled Jesus was there to offer words of comfort from the Father. Now that Jesus, that funnel cloud, has returned to the Father Cloud, another funnel cloud has come to dwell in us to continue the same work that Jesus did on earth. When we face trouble, questions fears doubt, we have the same comfort within us that the disciples had in the fleshly presence of God known as Jesus.