Devotional: John 19:13

Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:
John 19:13: “When Pilate heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.”
This morning I read this passage in the book of John and really became troubled over why John felt it necessary to give the Hebrew word for the seat that Pilate sat on.  After about an hour of meditation, searching the Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew and coming up with nothing profound I began to tell myself: “Ok, Bunkie, you’ve really lost it. It’s time you start getting a life now that you you’ve just wasted an hour of it trying to figure out where Pilate parked his keester.  I mean who cares?”
Well, apparently John cared enough to put in the Hebrew word and God must have cared enough to prompt John to include it in the inspired Word of God.  Maybe in my old age I am beginning to realize just how important every infliction of the inspired Word of God is and how important it is to consider the details. I’m at an age now where I don’t need to Wow a congregation or a group of students.  If the Holy Spirit leads me to focus on something no one cares about, I can focus on it because the God I love felt it important enough to put in His book.
Ok, realizing this subject would quickly clear out a room in a Bible study and send everyone to the dining room to grab the last remaining Twinkies in the world and discuss the imminent doom of America after the Presidential election results, I am going to give you the scoop on Gabbatha whether you want it or not.
Gabbatha is not a Hebrew word.   The closest word in the Hebrew would be Gabboth which is a masculine noun with a plural feminine termination from ghab in the eighth declension from the root word gabab.  “Hey, grab me one of those Hostess Cup Cakes on the way out will ya.”   Who says the world won’t end next month on December 21, 2012 – they’ve already stopped making Ding Dongs.
You see the root word, gabab, in a verbal form means…  I seem to be speaking only to Sparky the neighbor’s Pit Bull who is staring menacingly  at me as if I am about to steal his bone.  “You see Sparky, I would use gabab to describe the hole you will dig to bury your bone for safe keeping.”   As a noun, gabab is a pit or vault that is used to store and protect something of value.  So you see the Jews gave this seat that Pilate sat down on the name Gabbatha as it was something Pilate used to protect that part of his anatomy that was of great value to him from an angry mob that was about to attack him if he did not rule the way they wanted him to.   Ok, are you read to put that Hostess Ho Ho down and return to the study?
Good, because that really cannot be the Hebrew word used here for one good reason.  The English text which transliterated this from the Greek which transliterated it from the Hebrew ends the word with an “a, Alpha or Aleph.”   I don’t see anywhere in the Classical Hebrew where you have the word “gabab” ending in an Aleph after a Taw, no matter what the declension.  It seems the scribes copying the early manuscripts had a similar problem as the different manuscripts used different words such as kapphatha, kappata, gennetha, gennaesa, or gennesar.  They too got hung up on the word “Hebrew” and tried to figure out what Hebrew word John was referring to.
As is taught in every Evangelical Bible College and Seminary, only the original manuscript, written by the God inspired writer are inspired.  Copies of the manuscripts are not inspired and we do not have any idea where the original manuscripts are, so all we have are copies of the manuscripts written by men subject to error and in this case a lot of these scribes subjected their copies to private interpretation.  We naturally go to the earliest manuscripts as the closest to the original manuscripts, because, like a photo copy, you try to copy from the original because if you copy from a copy, you lose a lot of quality.
Ok, what is the solution?  How about looking at this word in the Aramaic?   Ironically, modern scholars do understand a few things that the scribes making their copies may not have understood simply because modern scholarship can see cultures from a bird’s eye view where 4th or 5th century scribes did not have that advantage. It is sort of like not seeing the forest for the trees.  Nonetheless, we know today that the word Hebrew was used for the word Aramaic because certain dialects very closely resembled the Hebrew and used the Hebrew script or visa versa if you happen to be an Easterner.  So this could be an Aramaic word.
The final Aleph strongly suggest that this is an Aramaic word with the final Aleph being a definite article.   The word gabbatha would come from the Aramaic word “gab” for side and “batha” for “the house.”  Gabbatha would mean the side of the house.   This is a little odd as Pilate should have rendered his verdict inside the beautiful, formal judgment hall and not by an outside bench.  This was, after all, his last appearance in the defense of Jesus.
The governor had already been accused of being too lenient with Jesus and this mob was increasing in size and mood.  There was the real danger of violence breaking out and if Pilate allowed such a thing to happen in the judgment hall and word got back to Caesar, as it surly would, old Pilate could kiss his career good bye.
Every dwelling had a gabbatha or a side wall with a formation of a seat where one could sit and rest.  In a palace or official building, guards and servants could sit and rest here, playing the role of a receptionist.  This is where Pilate chose to make his final defense for Jesus before surrendering to the will of the people, the receptionist office.
Maybe God inspired John to emphasize the place of the final judgment or surrendering to stress that the physical life of Jesus was surrendered at the lowest, humblest place.  He could not even be judged in the formal, beautiful, courtroom, but outside it, before a lynch mob.
I look at my own life and how my final surrender to God does not usually take place in a formal setting with the careful and impartial view of all evidence.  It is usually be a screaming mob of problems, frustrations and difficulties where I am trying protect my own keester with a gabab (my own play on words).