HEBREW WORD STUDY: MY DEAREST – (Aramaic) דרי אלהי DARI ALAHI
John 20:28: “And Thomas answered and said unto him: My Lord and my God.”
The passage in John 20:27-29 in the Greek tells us is: Ho, kuios mou, Ho Theos mou. My Lord and my God. Some liberal theologians have tried to dismiss that last phrase as an exclamation, ie., “My Lord and oh my gosh.” That is because they do recognize the words Ho Theos mou as an exclamation. It is indeed an exclamation but Thomas spoke this in a Northern dialect of Aramaic with a little different spin.
Thomas spoke a rather strange combination of words: dari alahi. Dari in Talmudic literature has the idea of being carried away or as we would say “swept off our feet”. Alahi is an Aramaic word for God but in the Northern dialect also has the idea of a controlling force. Literally it means that someone has such control over you that they have carried you away or swept you away. In a sense Thomas was saying that God has swept him off his feet. Yet, Thomas spoke this in the Northern dialect of Aramaic where these words dari alahi were a colloquial expression of endearment. We would say in English, “My beloved” or “My dearest.”
Of course I would not spread that around as many Christians think that is getting a little too personal with God.
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