Aramaic Word Study – To Consume – ‘Ackal

John 6:54: “Whosoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

The word in Aramaic that Jesus spoke for the word eat was ‘akal.  This word means your inward physical parts, like your kidneys, or possibly your spiritual part like your soul. It also has the idea of consuming or absorbing.  When you eat, say bread, it is consumed by your body through your digestive system and converted into energy to nourish your life. The word is also a play on the word kallah which is the word for a bride.  In a marriage relationship the bride and bridegroom consume each other or are absorbed by each other in their passionate love that they become as one.  In other words, you are to consume the words of Jesus such that they become a part of your being – kallah.  All your strength and energy to receive eternal life will come from Him.

Of course, Jesus is not saying that we are literally to eat His flesh and drink His blood. He is using an old Aramaic idiomatic expression. Actually, we tend to use this eating as an idiomatic expression.  A husband may say to his wife; “You are so beautiful, I could eat you up.”  Of course, she does not literally believe he wants to physically eat her but that he wants to be joined with her, consumed by her passion and love so that they become as one. There is an old first century Aramaic idiom, “I have eaten the body of my dead people.”  This would be understood as saying that someone was laboring under extreme difficulties.

Some idiomatic expressions are really geographical and what would be commonly understood in Galilee would not be understood a few miles South in Judea. For instance when I grew up we had a little neighborhood ma and pa grocery store we called “The Store Where Murphy Used to Live.”  Whenever my mother needed a loaf of bread or some lunch meat she would ask me to go to the store where Murphy Used To Live to pick it up. Murphy was a school friend of my older brother who lived in an apartment above the little store and it was known as the Store Where Murphy Lives.  But one day Murphy and his family moved thus it became the Store Where Murphy Used To Live.   My younger brother who was six years younger than I was never sent to pick up these grocery items from the store where Murphy used to live as such tasks traditionally fell upon me, the middle child.  However, one day when I was a teenager and my brother was seven or eight years old I convinced my mother it was time to send the little brother on these grocery assignments.  She agreed and called my brother over and asked him to go to the store Where Murphy Used to Live.  Like a good Judean who had not grown up in the Old Galilean period of our household he gave a questionable look and asked; “Whose Murphy?” He got the basic understanding of the request but had no idea who Murphy was and where he once lived had to do with securing groceries.

So, we have a glimpse of the idiom to eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His blood, but what does that have to do with eternal life? The people of Judah had a similar problem but the disciples from Galilee knew perfectly what Jesus was talking about. 

In the first century, there was a common Northern Galilean idiomatic expression that when a person has reached the point where exhaustion has just taken over his body he would say: “I have eaten my body and drank my blood.”  In other words, he is saying he has used up all his strength and energy and he needs more.

Perhaps Jesus is saying: “When you have used up all your energies in trying to live a righteous life to achieve eternity, then come to Me because I am the true source of eternal life. Consume my Words and let them become your source of life. For I will take over you laboring and suffering”  Jesus was prophesying of his death on the cross as the path to righteousness.

Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

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