What does maranatha mean?
Maranatha appears once in Scripture, at the close of 1 Corinthians, where Paul leaves the Aramaic untranslated:
“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.”1 Corinthians 16:22 (KJV)
Split marana-tha, it is a prayer: "Our Lord, come!" Split maran-atha, a confession: "Our Lord has come." Both readings are grammatically possible, and the early church likely treasured the double meaning — He has come; He is coming.
That an Aramaic phrase survives untranslated in a Greek letter to a Greek city tells us something remarkable: within about twenty-five years of the crucifixion, praying for Jesus' return (his parousia) was already so universal that even Gentile converts knew the words in Jesus' own mother tongue. The Bible's last chapter echoes it in Greek: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
Search 'maranatha' in Scripture →Word studies behind this answer
More Bible questions
- • What was Jesus' real name in Hebrew?
- • What does agape love mean in the Bible?
- • What does YHWH mean? (God's name in the Bible)
- • What does Selah mean in the Psalms?
- • What does hallelujah mean?
- • What does hosanna mean?
Verse text quoted from the King James Version. Study any passage free at Ekdia — no ads, no subscriptions.