ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – O YOU OF LITTLE FAITH –   ‘ANATHON ZE’ORI HIMANUTHA    אנתון זעורי הימנותא  Alpeh Nun Taw Vav Nin   Zyin Ayin Vav Resh Yod   Hei Yod Mem Nun Vav Taw Aleph

Matthew 8:25-26: “And his disciples came to [him], and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. (26) And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

Matthew 14:30-31: “But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. (31) And immediately Jesus stretched forth [his] hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Some stories are so familiar, we have heard these stories in countless sermons and in Sunday School that we really don’t need to read it from Scripture.  A very common mistake Christians make. They read the Bible, see a familiar story and just scan over it as they are certain they know this story. But, let’s just pause and really look at a couple of aspects of these two stories.  

In the first story, the disciples are in a boat with Jesus at sea. A storm comes up and the disciples are desperate and they go to Jesus and say: “Save us, we perish.”  Jesus asks them why they are afraid and then apparently scolds them for having such little faith. In the second story, Peter walks on the stormy waters but begins to sink and cries out “Lord save me.”  Again Jesus rebukes Peter for having such little faith. 

Here’s my question. When the disciples asked Jesus to save them in the first story, what made them think Jesus could do anything about a storm?  Seems to me they had a whole lot of faith in Jesus to believe He could rescue them from a storm.  But soft, when Jesus calmed the sea, they were amazed. Well, what did they expect Jesus to do?  Turn the boat into a speed boat and rush them ashore?  Maybe pick them all up and fly them through the air?  Well to be fair when I call out to Jesus to help me, I don’t have any idea how He is going to get me out the mess I got myself into and I am also amazed at how He does it. But at least I had enough faith to call out to Jesus. To accuse the disciples of having little faith when they actually called upon Him to rescue them? That doesn’t seem to be a teaching moment. 

Then we have the story of Peter who jumps over the side of the boat and walks out to Jesus on the water.  He must have gotten close enough to Jesus before he started to sink as all Jesus had to do was reach out and grab him. I mean that is not a “little” faith, that is whole bunches of faith. Yet, poor Peter is scolded for having little faith.  When Jesus lifted him out of the water his faith must have been restored as we don’t read about him sinking again. 

So why was Jesus scolding them with; “Oh you of little faith.”  I mean like He is absolutely disgusted with them.  But, who says Jesus was scolding them?  In Greek that exclamation “oh” is not found in the text, it is simply “You of little faith.”  The word little in Greek is oligos which means small in number or quality.  The preposition “of” is not there either and could be rendered as “You have little faith” or “You have a little faith.”  The Aramaic is a bit more clear. The word for little is zeora with no exclamation “oh”.  Church tradition sticks that “Oh” in there which has no business being there except that the translator and the church which sponsored the translators wanted it to be there to provide good sermon material on how we need to build our faith and why miracles do not happen.  It is simple, we have little faith, shame on us. 

Zeora could mean little but that is misleading for this word.  The word really has the idea of someone who is young and inexperienced.  It is used for an apprentice who has not yet mastered a certain skill.  Literally, in Matthew 8 Jesus is simply making a statement, it is in a simple Peal form. “Your faith is yet quite young.”  The implication is: “Why are you afraid, you have faith, it is young and inexperienced, but you do have faith.”  He told the same to Peter: “Peter, you are inexperienced in faith, but doggone it, you have faith, why doubt?”

Remember what Hebrews 11:1 says in the Aramaic: “Now faith is the substance of what you can imagine and the revelation of what you cannot see.”  Peter imagined He was walking on water and indeed he was, it was the revelation of what he could not see.  Once he looked at the angry waves he started to imagine himself sinking and he began to sink. 

One other thing, Jesus used the Aramaic word lemana which could mean why but could also mean “to which or but.”  In other words “You have a young inexperienced faith and yet you walked on water, how great is that? But then you let fear cause you to doubt.”  He told the disciples the same thing. “You have a young and inexperienced faith, yet you came to me for help believing I could do something but you let fear cause you to doubt, to break you concentration on your imagination, letting that computer in your head tell you, ‘Yeah, Jesus is powerful, but this situation is impossible,’ then doubt came and you panicked.”  

Are we not guilty of the same thing?  We have an immature faith, but we have enough faith to call out to Jesus to help us in time of trouble, imagining that He will help us and we may, even like Peter, walk out our faith but as soon as we let that old computer in our head start reasoning this all out: “You know, Bunkie,  this is impossible, I personally don’t see how Jesus is going to get you out of this.”  You then begin to doubt.  The biggest mistake we make is like the disciples and Peter, we try to figure out how Jesus will help us and when we start doing that we conclude it is impossible like the disciples call out to Jesus for help but concluding they were in an impossible situation or Peter actually walking out his faith and then suddenly thinking: “Wait a minute, I am walking on water, this is impossible.”