HANANIAH
It might be the most universal word in worship — sung in every language, by churches that agree on almost nothing else. We treat it as a joyful exclamation, like "hooray." But hallelujah is actually a command, addressed to you.The hallelujah meaning is, precisely, "Praise the LORD" — and the...
HANANIAH
English has one overworked word for love. We "love" our spouse, pizza, a movie, and God with the same four letters. Greek was wiser — it had several words for different kinds of love. And the one the New Testament reaches for most is the rarest and most radical.The agape...
HANANIAH
We sing it joyfully at Easter and Christmas as if it simply means "praise." But the word the crowds shouted as Jesus rode into Jerusalem was, at its root, a desperate cry: "Save us!"The hosanna meaning holds both notes at once — a plea for rescue that became a shout...
HANANIAH
If you've read the Psalms, you've seen it: a strange little word, Selah, dropped at the end of a line, untranslated, unexplained. It appears more than seventy times in the Bible — and even scholars admit they aren't entirely sure what it means.The selah meaning is one of the Bible's...
HANANIAH
For a lot of people, "repentance" is a heavy, gloomy word — images of guilt, groveling, and feeling bad about yourself. But the Greek word behind it points to something far more hopeful: not wallowing in regret, but turning toward a new life.The metanoia meaning recovers what "repentance" actually is....
HANANIAH
It was the next-to-last thing Jesus said from the cross, and in English it sounds almost like defeat — a dying man announcing the end. But the single Greek word behind it announced the opposite: not "I am finished," but "It is accomplished."The tetelestai meaning transforms how we hear Jesus'...
HANANIAH
It survived untranslated. When the New Testament was written in Greek, one little Aramaic prayer was left in its original form — too precious to the earliest Christians to render into another language. That word is maranatha.The maranatha meaning is, simply, "Come, Lord" — but behind those two words lies...
HANANIAH
Every English Bible is a translation, and every translation, no matter how good, loses a little something. Behind the familiar words are Hebrew and Greek originals that often carry more depth, color, and force than any single English word can hold.This guide collects key Greek and Hebrew words in the...