By Kerwin Holmes, Jr.

“…but also to the one of Abraham’s faith. He is the father of us all. As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations…”
Paul/Saul of Tarsus in his Letter to the Romans, from chapter 4 verses 16 and 17

DISCLAIMER
I realize that I may have written myself into a hole, so let me briefly make an exit route. I have already stated that I endeavor to expose some things that I believe are common Christian misconceptions this year. Now, in order to do that, I must engage with the Scriptures and the storied tradition of Church history. As you may know from looking at past blog posts, theological topics are not all that I hope to write about. Though theology is by far one of my favorite topics to pen about (see the “About” page on my website), it is not the only thing which I would like to discuss and reason about. I could pull something from my presuppositional worldview and state that at the end of the day, every stance I take will coincide with my theological convictions. But still, blog posts about Spider-Man comics and Sicario do not fit neatly within “Biblical topics.” So please keep that in mind as you continue to read my blog.

INTRODUCTION

That stated, if it is not clear in the title, I hope to make a case for why the word “Gentile” should not be used in any new Modern English Bible translations and instead be replaced with the word “nation.” The reason for this is twofold:

1. I would like to do away with the artificially dramatic hard line between when the Bible is addressing Jews and non-Jews in regard to theological matters. This is key in adequately engaging with modern theological concepts that deal in those strongly bifurcated terms, and to do so on an adequately Biblical basis. This would involve many situations, whether that be regarding Christian Dispensationalism or the academic tendency to see so-called “supersessionism” (aka Replacement Theology) peeking around most if not every corner in Christian thought.
2. I would like for us to get closer to the language and thoughts of the authors of the Bible as the Spirit spoke through them, making us to wrestle with what they were saying and with what God is revealed to be doing in our world.

To accomplish this task will require only one basic thing, and then an added effect to show why it matters:

1. I will need to engage in the original languages of the Biblical texts (namely Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Aramaic, and Ancient Greek, respectively) in order to demonstrate the novelty and uniqueness of the English word “Gentile.”
2. I will need to show at least one passage in which the rendering of the term “Gentile” masks or otherwise mistakes what the author is actually saying in the Biblical text.

After these two things are accomplished, it may also be useful to demonstrate how reading the Bible with as much nuance available to ourselves as was available to the original audience will encourage us to achieve spiritual maturity and historical fluency. These skills will enable us to navigate the Bible with increased wisdom and tact.

For many scholars who already know the ancient languages of the Bible, this isn’t much of an issue. But most Bible readers are not scholars like that. And for those of us who are, what good are our talents if we do not share the riches we receive from them? The greatest of teachers is first of all the greatest of servants.
I believe the Messiah said something like that.

THE EVIDENTIARY SECTION

I use the word “evidentiary” in order to let you all know that this is to be the section that proves what I am saying about the word “Gentile.” I also use it because, though you cannot see it now, as I type this there is a red editorial line underneath the word claiming that the term “evidentiary” is in fact not a Modern English word. It most certainly is one. It is the same situation as the word “integrous,” a descriptor for a woman or man who has integrity (and that word needs to make a comeback because it is useful for being concise).

I also use the term “evidentiary” in order to emphasize that English, particularly Modern English, is a language all to itself with its own peculiarities. Modern English is not any of the original languages used for the original writing of the Bible. It did not even exist back then. (And even Old English did not exist when the last words of the lastly written book of Bible were written.) Additionally, because English is a living language it is constantly receiving newer words as people encounter changing circumstances. It is also true that words from other languages (even dead languages) can be used to create new English words. (This is akin to how the English word “osteomalacia” is now used in the medical field to denote the abnormal softening of bone tissue, deriving from the Ancient Greek words μαλακία [softness] and ὀστέον [bone]).

So, words matter. And the language of particular words also matters. And “Gentile” is, at the end of the day, an English word.

The Bible was not written in English. English did not exist at all when the Bible was written. So, we must investigate what words from the languages original to the Bible are translated today for us English-speakers into “Gentile.” And we also must learn what those words from the original languages actually meant. This means that we will have to look into the languages of Ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek in order to determine their meanings. We do not have to track down every occurrence of the word “Gentile” in the English translation to do this. That would be like narrowing down every time that the word “the” is used in these three languages: it would be improbable and unnecessary. Instead, I will simply use verses that traditionally touch upon the Gentile-Jew distinction in order to complete this investigation. I will also segregate each ancient language to make things more streamlined. The Bible verses that I will use that have a Gentile-Jew distinction are Isaiah 49:6, Deuteronomy 18:9, and Galatians 3:14.

Ancient Hebrew
The Old Testament was originally written, for the most part, in Ancient Hebrew. You may see that only two verses above come from the Old Testament, otherwise known as the Hebrew Bible. This means that in terms of the ancient languages of the Bible, only Isaiah 49:6 and Deuteronomy 18:9 apply to this section. The Ancient Hebrew word often translated for “Gentile” in the Bible is conveniently only one word: goy/גוי. The plural of goy is the word goyim, and that word is often defined as “Gentiles.” For instance, here is the verse of Deuteronomy 18:9 in the Hebrew with the word for “Gentile” placed in bold:

כִּ֤י אַתָּה֙ בָּ֣א אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֣ן לָ֑ךְ לֹֽא־תִלְמַ֣ד לַעֲשׂ֔וֹת כְּתוֹעֲבֹ֖ת הַגּוֹיִ֥ם הָהֵֽם׃
When you enter into the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations.

You may be saying now: “Wait, that word doesn’t mean ‘Gentiles’ in the translation you just shared. It just means the word ‘nations,’ which is generic enough to not always mean a nation other than Ancient Israel or her descendants.”

And to that I say: “Yes. EXACTLY.”

In its cultural context, the Ancient Hebrew word only means “nation.” That’s it. Ancient Israel herself is called a goy numerous times in the Old Testament, most notably when she first became a nation in Exodus 19 at Mount Sinai (more on this later). There was no Ancient Hebrew word for “Gentile” all to itself, and this translation that I have hyperlinked proves it. The only way by which one may have determined the meaning of the word was by the context coming from the passage. This made the word goy/goyim to mean either 1) any nation including Israel, 2) only the nation of Israel, 3) only another particular nation such as Edom, or 4) a nation or a group of nations particularly other than Israel…which would be the traditional concept behind the word “Gentile” and usually was given in the plural form goyim.

These options for the word are commonly described by linguists as the “semantic domain” of a word. This means that, depending upon the context, the meaning of the word may change to be any of these meanings or, more rarely and in certain wordplay, multiple meanings at once. But note: this is not the same as the modern word “Gentile,” which never can mean a Jewish person. The English word “Gentile” rules out options 1-3 in the “semantic domain” of the original term from the Bible. This is critical to know, and not knowing this is hazardous because we can easily miss the actual meaning that the Biblical author meant to convey.

But there may yet be some naysayers among you esteemed readers, and for them we move onto Isaiah 49:6.

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר נָקֵ֨ל מִֽהְיוֹתְךָ֥ לִי֙ עֶ֔בֶד לְהָקִים֙ אֶת־שִׁבְטֵ֣י יַעֲקֹ֔ב וּנְציּרֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְהָשִׁ֑יב וּנְתַתִּ֙יךָ֙ לְא֣וֹר גּוֹיִ֔ם לִֽהְי֥וֹת יְשׁוּעָתִ֖י עַד־קְצֵ֥ה הָאָֽרֶץ׃
he says, “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel. I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

You may note that the Christian Standard Bible has this verse translated with the word “nations.” But the New King James Version and the modern King James Version both use the word “Gentiles” there. The discrepancy is natural because there just was not an Ancient Hebrew term that meant “Gentiles.” So translators who draw their own conclusions have decided whether the author meant to include Ancient Israel within the last promise of salvation or not. Thus, this verse could be read that the Servant of the LORD would bring restoration and salvation to both the Israelites and the rest of the nations separately as categories or it could be read that the Servant of the LORD would bring restoration and salvation to both the Israelites and the rest of the nations inclusively. Though both result in similar imagery, the nuance of difference matters when constructing theologies regarding the covenants of God and His relationship with every nation of the world.

Ancient Aramaic
For Ancient Aramaic, things get interesting because in terms of the word “Gentile” appearing in the Bible there are no verses from the Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible where a major translator used the word “Gentile”– at least so far as I have been able to find. Things are also interesting in that only specific passages of the Hebrew Bible are written in the Ancient Aramaic. These portions are typically found in books such as Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah with a few exceptions. This means that the Old Testament verses reviewed above do not directly pertain to Ancient Aramaic since they were originally written in Ancient Hebrew. That said, there are words analogous to the Hebrew word goy which do show up in Aramaic portions of the Hebrew Bible. Here is one, taken from the decree that King Darius sent out to the nations he ruled over after the plot to kill Daniel in the den of lions had failed (Daniel 6:25 or 6:26 in the Hebrew numbering system). I provide the Christian Standard Bible’s translation below while also marking the words of focus in bold:

בֵּאדַ֜יִן דָּרְיָ֣וֶשׁ מַלְכָּ֗א כְּתַ֠ב לְֽכָל־עַֽמְמַיָּ֞א אֻמַיָּ֧א וְלִשָּׁנַיָּ֛א דִּֽי־דָאְרִ֥ין בְּכָל־אַרְעָ֖א שְׁלָמְכ֥וֹן יִשְׂגֵּֽא׃
Then Darius wrote to those of every people, nation, and language who live on the whole earth: “May your prosperity abound…”

The words here are the Aramaic terms ammayya and umayya, which both mean “people” and “nation” respectively. Note, the words are vague to fit within the same semantic domain of the Hebrew word goy. If we were to use the word “Gentile” for any of these occurrences of these words, we miss out on the exercise of contextual reading that the original readers would have had. Indeed, we miss out on the contextual reading that most Bible readers had to exercise in history.

Some may say, “But wait, Ancient Syriac is an Aramaic dialect, and certainly the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament both were translated into Ancient Syriac.”

My answer is: “Yes, that is correct.”

However, that fact adds nothing to the conversation other than the fact that the Syriac writers used no term distinguishing “nation” in the generic sense from “Gentile” in the Modern English sense.

Daniel 6:26 (the Syriac writers followed the Hebrew numbering system here) reads:
6 ܗܝ݁ܕܝܢ ܕܪܝܘܫ ܡ݁ܠܟܐ݂. ܟ݁ܬ݂ܒ ܠܟܠܗܘܢ ܥܡܡ̈ܐ ܘܐܡ̈ܘܬܐ ܘܠܫ̈ܢܐ ܕܥܡ݁ܪܝܢ ܒܟܠܗ݁ ܐܪܥܐ. ܫܠܡܐ ܢܣܓܐ ܠܟܘܢ.
Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and tongues that dwelt in all the land: “May peace increase for you all…” (translation mine)

The words ammi/amme and *amwata/amwoto are plurals meaning the exact same as the older dialect of Aramaic words from Daniel, “peoples” and “nations” respectively. I have placed them in bold and underlined them as well so that you may tell them apart.

Even so, in a foreshadow to what we will see in the Ancient Greek, Galatians 3:14 in the Syriac reads:
4 ܕ݁ܰܒ݂ܥܰܡ݈ܡ̈ܶܐ ܬ݁ܶܗܘܶܐ ܒ݁ܽܘܪܟ݁ܬ݂ܶܗ ܕ݁ܰܐܒ݂ܪܳܗܳܡ ܒ݁ܝܶܫܽܘܥ ܡܫܺܝܚܳܐ ܘܰܚܢܰܢ ܢܶܣܰܒ݂ ܫܽܘܘ݈ܕ݁ܳܝܳܐ ܕ݁ܪܽܘܚܳܐ ܒ݁ܗܰܝܡܳܢܽܘܬ݂ܳܐ
That among the nations the blessing of Abraham would be through Jesus the Messiah, and we would receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. (translation mine)

The word that is in bold is the word ammi/amme, the exact same word as found in the Syriac Daniel 6:26, which is the same basic word as the word ammayya found in the older Aramaic in the original text.

If you notice, there is only one constant meaning that allows for the nuance provided by Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Aramaic, and even Ancient Syriac, and that meaning is found only in the modern English word “nation,” and not in the English word “Gentile.”

Ancient Greek
This is perhaps the section that will be the strongest and easiest, seeing as the Hebrew Bible was translated into Ancient Greek by Jewish translators before the time of Jesus so that Greek-speaking Jews (which by then were most Jews in the Greco-Roman world) could read their Scriptures in the lingua franca of their day. This language was also used by Paul to spread the Gospel, which means that all three verses we are considering can be found in the Ancient Greek as Jewish people understood them to be.

Deuteronomy 18:9
Ἐὰν δὲ εἰσέλθῃς εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἣν κύριος ὁ θεός σου δίδωσίν σοι, οὐ μαθήσῃ ποιεῖν κατὰ τὰ βδελύγματα τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐκείνων.
If you go into the land, which the Lord your God gives to you, do not learn to do according to the abominations of these nations. (translation mine)

Isaiah 49:6
6 καὶ εἶπέν μοι Μέγα σοί ἐστιν τοῦ κληθῆναί σε παῖδά μου τοῦ στῆσαι τὰς φυλὰς Ιακωβ καὶ τὴν διασπορὰν τοῦ Ισραηλ ἐπιστρέψαι· ἰδοὺ τέθεικά σε εἰς διαθήκην γένους εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν τοῦ εἶναί σε εἰς σωτηρίαν ἕως ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς.
And He said to me, “It is a great thing for Me in calling you, My Servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob and to turn back the Diaspora of Israel. Look, I have appointed you for a familial covenant as a light of the nations in order for you to be salvation to the end of the land/earth. (translation mine)

You will note that in theses two passages, it happens that the same Greek word ethnos/ἔθνος is used in the same form. The Greek word ethnos means “nation” just the same as the Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Aramaic terms, and it is the root from which we get the English words “ethnicity” and “ethnic.”

But one may protest and say “Wait, but in even the translations you have provided, those texts clearly distinguish Jewish persons from others so that the word ‘Gentile’ is allowable in those circumstances. So tradition is still helpful here.”

Ah. But we are to review 3 verses, and not merely 2. We still must review Galatians 3:14 written by Saul (also known by his Roman name Paul) the Pharisaic Jew from Tarsus. When we look at the Ancient Greek used in Galatians 3:14 with the accompanying translation from the Christian Standard Bible, we read:

Galatians 3:14
4 ἵνα εἰς τὰ ἔθνη ἡ εὐλογία τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ γένηται ἐν ⸉Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ⸊, ἵνα τὴν ⸀ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ πνεύματος λάβωμεν διὰ τῆς πίστεως.
The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Waitasec. Now we have an issue. For anyone who knows the Letter to the Galatians, its entire lesson is that Paul is not a non-Jew, but a Jew, and yet the Galatians, who were largely not Jews, were equal to him before God. There was no special ethnic priority before the throne of God.

So then, why in the world would Paul use the term “Gentile” and then include himself within that group, saying “so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith?” Why would Paul call himself a “Gentile?”

That’s the thing. He didn’t. Paul is very clear in Galatians 2 that he was not a “Gentile sinner” or better yet, “an ethnic (non-Jewish) sinner.” The word “Gentile,” if it isn’t clear now, is an English word. In fact, go back and read through Galatians 3 and substitute the word “nation” everywhere that you read the word “Gentile.” I guarantee you that the passage will make a lot more sense and flow better for you. In fact, the exact same word is translated simply as “nations” in the important verse Galatians 3:8…and that from a reference directly from the Jewish Greek Old Testament tradition which we referenced above.

This leads to perhaps the most critical question to ask: But where did the word “Gentile” come from?

Good question. As you may know, for Western Europe, the Latin translations of the Bible became most dominant over the Greek and Hebrew. Eventually, these would coalesce in the 4th-century work done by St. Jerome of Stridon, a translation called the Latin Vulgate. It went through some updates, but remained largely based upon Jerome’s work. Christians from the British Isles to even parts of Eastern Europe came to rely upon the Latin Vulgate even before English showed up as a language. And the English word for “Gentile” actually comes from the Latin word for “nation,” which was gens, and it specifically derived from the adjectival form gentilis, which meant something or someone in reference to a particular family or clan. Even in Latin, the root word for the English term “Gentile,” there was no specific word set apart to inherently mean a nation that was non-Jewish. That was a later Christian concept once the dividing lines became strong enough to culturally delineate in formal terms. It turns out that the word “Gentile” is very much like the word “osteomalacia.”

WHY THIS MATTERS, AND WHERE WE GO FROM HERE

The word “Gentile” is not really in the Bible. But the word “nation” is, and it was not always used with the same groups of people in mind. Placing the nuance of the semantic domain of “nation” back into the Bible actually makes the text clearer, and it matures the Christian. Knowing this about the passage shows the bounds of riches that we now have in the Church. In modern theology, a lot of our systematic theology operates upon a very strong and non-negotiable divide between “Israel” and “the Church.” Some even have eschatological systems divergent in this view: some say now is the “Church Age” and later will come an age when God will focus nigh exclusively upon Israel. Or even, some may not draw any distinction at all and proclaim that the Church is the “new Israel” or even the “true Israel.”

Now, I do not hope to debate those positions here and now. I don’t even hope to lay out my own view, which I did mention in brief in previous posts related to the Mosaic Law, how we Christians actually are able to live by the entire Bible, and how we ought to think about the Christian life in relationship to self-defense and national identity. What I do hope to demonstrate is the importance of the language that we use in our translations. I argue that the word “Gentile” has so much baggage anachronistic to the Bible that it largely is not useful for our modern translations. Even so, it is solely dependent upon the exegetical choices that translators derive from their own theology. And they often get it wrong, or at the very least, they risk getting it wrong (Galatians 3:14 being an excellent case example of the former).

You will find that for most English translations, Galatians 3:14 has the word “Gentile” in it. Clearly, when one traces Paul’s argument in the context of that verse, that particular translation decision is incorrect. It is not as if this is a verse where we may agree to disagree on whether by “nations” Paul meant to exclude the Israelites. No. If the Israelites are excluded in Galatians 3:14, then Paul’s entire argument collapses. And it collapses not only there, but also in analogous passages from letters on the similar topic, such as Romans 4 (cited partially in the given introductory verse to this post). It would be best to end on the safer side and simply translate the word as “nation/nations” to avoid interjecting our own anachronistic theologies into the Biblical text.

After all, Paul’s entire point in Galatians 2 and in Romans 4 is that through Messiah Jesus, the son of David but also the son of Abraham, all nations are invited to be adopted into the Abrahamic promises once enjoyed exclusively by Ancient Israel. These promises were revealed in part and by mystery to be enjoyed by others throughout time, but now the full revelation of the mystery has been uncovered. Jesus taught the same, much to the chagrin of His people.
Here is where I do, in part, conflict with some systematic theologies: it is not that we are incorporated into the family of Israel/Jacob, making Jacob the father of us all.

No, that is not what Paul wrote and that is not the familial tree that Paul concerns himself with from Romans 2 to Romans 11.

We are all incorporated into the family of Abraham, not Israel. We are united within the one to whom God made the promise to not only bless all nations through him, but the one whom God promised to make into a father of many nations. We are united to the very one who gave Ancient Israel her covenantal status to begin with. John the baptizer said while speaking to his Israelite countrymen that God was able “to raise sons of Abraham from these very stones [on the ground].” Jesus said the same thing after helping, of all people, a Roman centurion, and He did this by healing his slave. It is to the children of promise throughout time, to those actual chosen by God, that the promises of God were to apply. Notice that when Paul made the same argument in Galatians, Jacob the patriarch was nowhere to be found. There is only Abraham, the “father of a multitude” or (even possibly also the “father who loves”). It is to Abraham that Paul appealed, the one upon whose covenantal shoulders Isaac and Jacob both stood.

This is why Paul was so irate against the Christians in the region of Galatia. Had they all forced everyone to become national Israelites by becoming Judeans, or to Judaize, in order to enter into Christ’s kingdom, then they would have nullified the promised and providential power of God in His Gospel to make the many one and to reverse and undermine the rebellion begun anew at Babel. They would be fighting against God and His entire salvation narrative! But that is a longer story I will need more time to flesh out…

Grammarians’s Note: I am not a grammarian, but I do leave this note here to object to one exegetical interpretation that I believe is unwarranted. Almost the sole example that exegetes will point to for Paul identifying “the Church” with “Israel” or the “true Israel” in a 1-to-1 identity is from Galatians 6:16. The problem with this is that it is not warranted according to Greek grammar. There is an identifiable rule called the “Granville Sharp Rule” that deals with how adjectival/substantive referents in Greek can be multiple (multiple referents each referring to different groups or individuals) or singular (all referents applying to one singular group or individual). But that requires at the least that the definitive article is used at the first referent. Unfortunately for these referents, the article is only used at the end for “Israel of God” alone. Here is the original Koine: καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ ⸀στοιχήσουσιν, εἰρήνη ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔλεος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ. This means that the final “καὶ” for the word “and” is actually an emphatic inclusion. It is a rhetorical move Paul does that sums up his entire argument. God’s peace and mercy rest upon all those who now acknowledge His sovereign positioning of all nations equally within His New Covenant relationship at the foot of the cross at Mount Zion. This dual blessing rests upon all peoples regardless of their nationality, even upon the Israel of God, that is, it rests even upon the ethnic Israelites who prove to be the “true Israelites” by obeying God and abiding in His New Covenant. This is in line with Paul’s rhetoric of the “true Jew” in Romans 2. You can read about how the Granville Sharp rule works here and also read here for a very nerdy examination of the rule by an actual grammarian.

(Note added on September 14, 2021)

The main point is this: when you read your Bibles, I highly recommend that you begin substituting the word “nation/nations” wherever you encounter the word “Gentile/Gentiles.” The Modern English word “Gentile” is usually utilized for underlying words that simply mean “nation,” and “Gentile” has the power of obscuring a passage or even making a passage erroneous. This is something that we should all be vigilant of. This is not always the case. I can think of one passage regarding the Syrophoenician woman where the word “Hellene” is translated often as “Gentile” (and that is wrong also, but to see why that is wrong, you need to know the story of Hanukkah). (Edit: see here for a pretty cool historical video on that.) But for the most part, this is the case and it should be corrected. If I had it my way, English translators would stop using the word “Gentile” for Biblical texts. In fact, that should be an endeavor for future translators.

We Christians form the Body of Christ, the Church, which is the celestial-terrestrial multinational kingdom of the ever-living Christ, who reigns as the legitimate King of Israel and King of kings. It is the Messiah Jesus, the eternal Son and God-Man, who has spread His national and eternal goodwill to all the sons of Abraham, all who share in His faith of promise, be they Israelites, other physical descendants of Abraham, or the myriad of national adoptees.

We Christians have a covenant such that, being Jews and non-Jews, being Hispanic and non-Hispanic, being white and non-white, being Nigerians and not-Nigerians, being Westerners and Easterners, being from the Global South or the Global North, being islanders or mainlanders, we are all invited from whatever nation from which we are called (and some of us from more than one at a time) to become God’s chosen people. The status given to Ancient Israel at Mount Sinai as God’s chosen people has now been expanded upon and extended to the Chosen from among all nations from the better Mount Zion which corresponds to the Heavenly Mount above. It is in Christ and Christ alone that we all are born again and unite around the table of the Eucharist, having been washed in baptism, and in receiving the communal meal, that we obtain the Peace of Christ which pervades this earth through His Divine Assembly: the Church.

It is literally written within our Bible. It was the singular message given both to the non-Jewish Galatian Christians and also to the Jewish Christians who faced ridicule from their countrymen while the Temple still stood.

This is the Gospel of the Messiah– this is our Gospel to proclaim to all the nations.

May we grow and come to read the Scriptures with increasingly enlightened and beatific vision.

May the Lord’s kingdom continue to come!
!ܡܳܪܰܢ ܐܶܬ݂ܳܐ
Maranatha!

*Edit February 21, 2021 (noticed that I transliterated the feminine plural wrong.)

*Edited March 6, 2021 with additional video resource for Hanukkah.