ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – TRANSFER OF THE DEED – ‘ONAH אונה Aleph Vav Nun Hei

John 14:2-3,23 “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if [it were] not [so], I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also. (23) Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love (racham) me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love (racham) him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

This is a little strange, Jesus talks about coming and taking us to His Father’s house but then just twenty verses later He says that He and His Father’s abode will be with those who love or racham Him. Here we have a little deeper insight into the meaning of the word racham.

But first, we need to consider this idea of a house and an abode. In the days of Jesus when a man was betrothed to a woman they were actually married, however, they did not live together for at least a year. This would give the bride and groom a chance to get to know each other considering the fact that often the first time they met was at their wedding. Thus, a bride and groom were encouraged to grow intimate with each other on an emotional level before joining in physical intimacy. The family would support the groom financially for this year as he busied himself in spending time with his new bride. This would be like the custom of the engagement in our Western culture. The couple would spend enormous amounts of time together sharing their hopes and dreams together and falling deeper in love. In the first century the groom, not having to work for a livelihood for that year, would also spend time preparing his new home. Families continued to live together even after marriage and what the bridegroom would do would build an addition, so to speak, to his father’s house. The groom would continue to live with his father and the bride with her father. At the end of the betrothal period, the groom would walk to the house of the father of the bride and pick up his bride and carry her back to his father’s house where they would live for the rest of their lives.

The idea of a mansion comes mainly from the Latin Vulgate. Mansion in ancient times through the middle ages were usually homes that started out as a single dwelling and had additions added as the male children married and continued to live with their parents, caring for the parents in their declining years. That is why a male child was so important. Without a male heir, there would be no one to continue the family estate or multiple dwelling places and the elderly were left with no one to care for them.

You find remnants of this in royalty, like in the United Kingdom where the royal family continues to use Windsor Castle as a temporary residence for the royal family. Windsor Castle contains many apartments or rooms and is owned by the reigning monarch. When a prince would marry he would move his bride into his father’s castle.

When Jesus said that his Father’s house had many mansion He was illustrating our future after our lives ended here on earth. While we are here on earth we are living in our betrothal with Jesus our bridegroom. Our time here on earth is a time of growing in love with Him as we get to know Him throughout our life’s journey. We grow in ‘ahav/chav with Him. ‘Ahav is the word love in Hebrew and chav is it’s equivalent in Aramaic. ‘Ahav/chav is a love that grows, a love that starts as a small flame that we need to work at to keep it burning. It is like the frosting on the cake of racham which is a love that God breathed neshamah into us. That love has been buried, put to sleep so to speak by our sins. But it is a natural love, awakened by the love for an infant or child. Once the sins are forgiven that racham will begin to awaken to reach out to God and racham will begin to draw the ‘ahav/chav love towards it. During our betrothal with Jesus that ‘ahav/chavlove begins to awaken our racham love until the day that Jesus takes us to His Father’s house and all ‘ahav/chav love falls away and like a caterpillar coming out of its cocoon to be a beautiful butterfly, our racham emerges from the cocoon of ‘ahav/chav to be that perfect love joined with the love of Jesus.

Jesus said that when that racham is awakened in us His racham and His Father’s racham will, at last, find a home in us. Thus we will come to Him and make our abode with Him. When we die we will go home to be with Jesus, but when we are saved, Jesus and the Father will find their home in us while we are on earth.

The word abode is in Aramaic is ‘onah which sounds a lot like owner which is what it means. To acquire the deed or title to a property. God becomes our owner, He acquires the deed of ownership from us. Well, before we are saved the enemy has a lien on that deed that must be satisfied before the transfer of the deed can be made. Before the racham of God can find a home in us that lien must be satisfied. So, Jesus paid off the lien with his blood and now the deed of ownership of our soul passes to Jesus and we become His possession. He owns us, locks, stock, and barrel. If you don’t like it you are free to spend eternity with some other owner. Like it or not we all have one of two possible masters. God or the enemy. If we accept Jesus as our Savior he will acquire veil of ‘ahav/chav from us to reveal that beautiful butterfly – racham.