ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – RICH AND POOR – ‘ATAR MASAK עתר מסך Ayin Taw Resh Mem Samek Kap

II Corinthians 8:9: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”

I grew up hearing this verse over and over in sermons and on Christian radio. I rarely, if ever, most likely never, heard anyone explain this verse. I guess they just assumed that everyone would naturally understand its meaning. Everyone except Chaim Bentorah. Maybe I did and it never made sense to me.

Why would Jesus need to be rich? How could He become poor when He was God incarnate? Now before you start saying this is a reference to spiritual richness, I must ask you what is spiritual richness? To me, the only richness that is spiritual is a closeness to the Heavenly Father. The closer you are the richer you are spiritual. I am good with that except Jesus was God, how could He get any closer to Himself? Yeah, I know this Chaim Bentorah fellow really has problems. On top of that, the Greek word used for rich in this verse is in its root form plousio which is a reference to material wealth. The word in Greek for poor and poverty is ptocheia which is begging, poverty destitute, again a reference to lack of material wealth nothing spiritual about it.

Commentators have given many plausible explanations. The one I like the best that is Jesus paid off our debt of sin but it cost Him everything to do it, however, as a result, we became rich spiritually by becoming children of God who owns everything. I know, it has a few rough bumps and is not really true to plausio and ptocheai but I like it.

However, I checked this out in the Aramaic and found some interesting things. First, the word for grace is tivutah from the root word tov which means to be in harmony with God. Thus, right away in the Aramaic, I would read this as “For you know that in order to be in harmony with us, even though he was rich…”

Ok, let’s take that word rich apart. In the Aramaic, in its root form, it is ‘atar. Now if this were Hebrew it would mean to press strongly toward a goal. The word moved into the Aramaic during the Babylonian captivity where the Babylonian merchants sought the services of the Hebrews because they displayed a unique talent for business and making money. As a result, the Hebrew word ‘atar moved into the Aramaic as a word for striving toward a goal to become wealthy. However, we must remember that wealth in those days, as it is today, meant power. Paul is most certainly using money or material wealth as a metaphor, but a metaphor to symbolize power. Jesus left a position of ultimate power, rich in power if you like for our sakes to become poor and through this poverty, we will become empowered.

The word for poor in its root form is masak. This is also a Hebrew word that got itself intermixed with the Babylonian Aramaic. In fact, that is what the word means in Hebrew is to mix together. During the Babylonian captivity, the word moved into the Aramaic with the idea of mixing together to reduce. Another word is to consolidate. A key business move is to consolidate your business and reduce your overhead. You make your business leaner and meaner. When Jesus came to earth He consolidated His power. He took all the power of God and put it into a human body. When a business is consolidated, it is no longer big overstuffed business but has had all the fat and dry wood removed so that it is a smaller business but a profitable business and that is the goal of any business is to show a profit.

When Jesus came to earth as a human being He trimmed all the fat out of our obligation to God. No longer was it necessary to offer sacrifices and offerings to God. He cut out all the red tape and simply said; “Just believe in Me and you will have eternal life.” Everything the Torah law required was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The offerings, the sacrifices, the commitments to follow a complex list of dos and don’ts reduced to simply accepting Jesus as your Savior and learning to love Him with all your heart, soul, and might. When you come to realize the price He paid to come to earth and suffer torment, pain, and death just so we can be in harmony with Him is that not enough to motivate you to love Him?

Not only that but we do not have to do a thing to become worthy to enter a harmonious relationship with God, Jesus did it all and what we have to do is just surrender our hearts and lives to Him and He gives us His heart and eternal life. In fact, the Aramaic word for you is ‘anthun. Turn the Aleph into a prefix and you have the word being God giving you. We don’t earn one snippet of our redemption, salvation, or eternal life. It is given to us and we just accept it.

Grace, undeserved favor is written all over this verse, in fact, it is what this verse is all about.

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