Amen: ahmeyn, adverb (Strong’s 543)
Root: אָמֵן
It is estimated that the Bible is 33% poetry. That means that a large chunk of scripture is charged with emotions, sometimes uplifting, sometimes heartbreaking. In these poems we find poetic tools such as imagery, metaphor, rhythmic cadence and word-play. God wanted poetry to be part of His message to us, and that is worth investigating.
One of my favourite poems, Le papillon et la fleur, was written by Victor Hugo. (You can read the poem and its association with Hugo’s life, here). It tells the wistfully romantic story of a flower (chained to the earth) who was in love with a butterfly (who fluttered in and out of the flower’s life). In the final line of the poem the flower implores the butterfly to, “take root like me – or else give me wings like you!”
Poetry helps us to understand life from a different perspective. The flower may want to be freed from its earthly chains, but if we cut the flower it dies more quickly. Biblical poetry taps into the human story with powerful emotions. There are joyful poems and poems of great lament. The poet may call out to God in desperation, and in another poem the poet praises God with an open heart. Poems bring our emotions to the surface and through poetry we can feel a connection to people long past, emphasising that the human experience is timeless. Today we can call out to YHWH in our grief just as David did. Thousands of years may separate us from the Biblical writers, but we are not so different.
Over the next few weeks we’re going to look at some Hebrew terms found primarily (but not exclusively) in the collection of poetry known as the Psalms. This week we begin with the word AMEN!
Amen
The word amen only show up 30 times in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). A stand-alone amen shows up nineteen times, primarily in Deuteronomy 27 where we read about the twelve curses recited on Mount Ebal. Each curse ended with the phrase, “And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”
In the writings of Isaiah amen was only used twice and it was found in the same chapter:
Isaiah 65:15b-18
[YHWH:] “But My servants will be called by another name. Because the one who is blessed on the earth will be blessed by the God of amen (translated as the God of truth) [b-Elohey ahmeyn בֵּאלֹהֵ֣י אָמֵ֑ן]; and the one who swears an oath on the earth will swear by the God of amen [b-Elohey ahmeyn בֵּאלֹהֵ֣י אָמֵ֑ן]; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from My sight!
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing and her people for gladness.”
God was the God of Amen… the Truth-bearer… the trustworthy One. The One on whom we can always rely; the One who would faithfully renew the earth as it was meant to be.
Amen was a way of saying, “it is truth”, “I believe it!”, “so be it!” It was a public announcement of faith which was, not surprisingly, related to the Hebrew word for faithfulness, emunah [אֱמוּנָ֑ה]. Amen and faithfulness share the same root letters.
Amen and amen
Frequently, in the Bible, amen is paired with another amen. This double amen makes an emphatic point. It’s like adding an exclamation point to the end of a sentence. All these double amens are in the Psalms, apart from two instances found in Numbers 5 and Nehemiah 8.
In Numbers 5 we read about a test for women accused of adultery. Women, accused by their jealous husbands of unfaithfulness, were made to drink bitter waters to determine their guilt or innocence. In response to this strange (in our contemporary ears) practise, the accused women was to swear on the curse with a double amen:
Numbers 5:22b
And the woman shall say, “Amen, Amen [ahmeyn ahmeyn].”
What do we do with this passage? From our modern perspective this strange trial-by-ordeal practice sounds like patriarchal nonsense, but it’s important that we remember the cultural context to this story. Similar ordeal tests were commonly found in ancient near eastern cultures. It was what people expected their gods to do. Ancient people assumed their pagan gods would show them the truth. The Hebrew people felt the same way about YHWH.
In the Torah adultery was punishable by death. If there was no ritual trial then any man could accuse his wife of infidelity and end her life. By creating this “test” it forced God’s people to come to Him. This was a clever way of preventing husbands from taking the law into their own hands. Jealous husbands could be paranoid and wrong, resulting in murder. Bringing the issue to the Temple was an intervention that limited the possibility of reactionary rage. Although our 21st century moral compass makes us want to judge this ancient custom, the truth was, it ultimately protected many women from death. The innocent would not be put to death because their husbands made terrible assumptions. It is worth noting that even the guilty may have been excused from their fate with death because the result of the test on the guilty was a “swollen belly and a fallen thigh”, resulting in the inability to conceive. A lot of time could pass by before there was any proof of a womb that did not produce. By then cooler heads may have prevailed. By the way, there is no story, in the Bible, that includes the use of this trial by ordeal. We never seen an example of this law in action.
For the women who were guilty of cheating on their husbands, saying “amen amen” would have been a frightful experience. It was a “so be it” to accepting their divine punishment. in comparison, the innocent women would have been able to say “amen amen” with great confidence. They would be able to say, “So be it! Do your worst! I have faith in my innocence and my words are true”.
[As an aside, it is interesting to note that the name Mary/Miriam comes from the Hebrew word marah, meaning bitter. It was the same word used in Numbers 5 to describe the bitter water that the accused women were to drink. Mary, the mother of Yeshua, could have been accused of adultery by Joseph, when her pregnancy was revealed, but a divine intervention convinced Joseph of Mary’s innocence. God always defends the innocent.]
The second instance of the double amen came, more joyously, after the people returned to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon. They were able to celebrate the reading of the Torah together in Jerusalem and it was a time of merriment and joy:
Nehemiah 8:2-6
Then Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it before the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left. Then Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed YHWH, the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen [אמן אמן]!” with the raising of their hands; then they kneeled down and worshiped YHWH with their faces to the ground.
Besides these two particular examples, the rest of the double amens are found in the Psalms and they have a unique job. You may be aware, or you may not be aware, that the Biblical collection of Psalms are divided into five sections: 1–41, 42–72, 73–89, 90–106, 107–150. Many relate these five sections of the Psalms to the five books of the Torah.
The Hebrew word “Amen” was used as a key to emphasising the five sections of the Psalms. In fact, in the Psalms amen is only found in these division passages and nowhere else. The first three sections end with amen and amen.
End of first section: Psalm 41:13
Blessed be YHWH, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen [אמן ואמן].
End of second section: Psalm 72:19-20
And blessed be His glorious name forever; and may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen [אמן ואמן]. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
End of third section: Psalm 89:52
Blessed be YHWH forever! Amen and Amen [ אמן ואמן].
The fourth section concludes slightly differently:
Psalm 106:48
Blessed be YHWH, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. And all the people shall say, “Amen. Hallelu-YAH [הללו יה]”
It has been suggested that Psalm 150 was the concluding doxology of the entire collection of Psalms found in our Bibles, but it does not include “amen”.
Psalm 150
Praise YHWH! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty expanse.
Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with harp and lyre.
Praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise Him with stringed instruments and flute.
Praise Him with loud cymbals; praise Him with resounding cymbals.
Everything that has breath shall praise YAH. Hallelu-YAH [t-hallel-YAH hallelu-YAH]!
John’s Revelation, the final book of the B’rit Chadashah (New Testament), draws from Psalm 150, but it includes “amen” (in Greek):
Revelation 19:4-6
And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelu-YAH! [Greek: Ἀμήν· Ἁλληλούϊα]”
And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.”
Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying,
“Hallelu-YAH, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.”
It was worth shouting “Amen!” to this triumphal end of the whole cosmic story. John’s vision of victory endures us to cry out, “so be it! I have faith that it will be as it has been described!” Ultimately God wins and so do we!
Yeshua and Amen
In our English Bibles, when Yeshua says “truly I say to you” (in Matthew, Mark, and Luke) or “truly, truly” (found exclusively in the Gospel of John), it is actually an English translation of the Hebrew word amen dropped into the Greek text of the New Testament.
Amen is a transliterated word, meaning the word was transferred from the Hebrew alphabet into Greek alphabet, but the pronunciation remained (roughly) the same. In English we do this all the time with words like karaoke (Japanese), lemon (Arabic), mammoth (Russian), and hallelujah (Hebrew). In English we read, amen, but in Hebrew it looks like this: אָמֵֽן, and in Greek it looks like this, ἀμήν. The letters may look different but, to our ears, the words sound the same.
John is the only Gospel writer to put “amen amen” together and he does this repeatedly. Let’s look at a few examples:
John 5:24
“Truly, truly [Amen, amen: Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν], I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly [Amen, amen: Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν] I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
John 10:7-10
So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly [Amen, amen: Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν] I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All those who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.”
[See also: John 1:51; 3:3, 5, 11; 5:19, 25; John 6:26, 32, 47, 53; John 8:34, 51; John 10:1; John 12:24; John 13:16, 20, 21, 38; John 14:12; John 16:20, 23; John 21:18]
John’s double amen is a reminder of the Numbers passage, the Nehemiah passage, and the division of the Psalms. God is our protector (defender of the innocent), our redeemer (bringing us back home), and our everlasting salvation (to our glorious eternal life). Amen amen!
Faith and truth are intrinsically connected. Yeshua was literally saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you…” but the translation of “truly” works well because Yeshua emphasised the truth, “it is so! I am the door, the eternal life-giver, the great I Am”. Have faith, because it is the truth.
Poetry is emotional; amen is emphatic, energetic and firm. They pair well together. Amen takes a solid stand saying, “I believe it! I have faith!”
What amen does not imply is the end of a prayer. We don’t say amen to close communication. We say AMEN to announce that we have faith in the God who loves us and to invite others into the party!
Hallelu-YAH! Amen! [Praise be to YAH! Amen!]
Next week: Psalm/Melody
Hebrew Word Lessons 