ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – FRIEND – RACHAM – רחס
John 15:15: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
We have friends on Facebook, we have politicians who call us friends, salespeople call us friends, a dog is man’s best friend so what is the big deal that Jesus calls us a friend. Big whoop, just another celebrity calling me a friend to get my vote, sale, or support. We have used that word friend in English in so many different contexts it has become like the word love, it has lost its true meaning. We are so desensitized by the overuse of these words that when we read them in the Bible they have no real profound effect on us. At least not the effect it has when I read these words in the Aramaic.
To be fair the Greek uses the word phileous which means a friend; it is a lesser love than agape. But then are we to say that agape is the word in John 3:16, but he only phileous his disciples? Jesus spoke Aramaic and the word used in the Aramaic Bible is racham. In its Semitic root, it means the womb or more specifically the love a mother has for a child in her womb. A child in the mother’s womb is little more than a friend. There is not a word in the Greek for racham; it is agape love on steroids.
Let me put it into context. Imagine getting a notification from your local politician who instead of calling you “my friend” starts with: “My dearest cherished beloved who has captured my heart.” We would say that is a bit pretentious. Yet that is racham and what Jesus is saying when He says: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you my dearest cherished beloved who has captured my heart.”
I would say that makes Him a little more than a click on Facebook.
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