Maranatha Meaning

An Aramaic Word in a Greek Letter

"Maranatha" appears once in the New Testament, at the close of 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 16:22 — "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha."

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in Greek, but these two closing words are not Greek. Anathema (ἀνάθεμα) is Greek for "accursed, devoted to destruction." Maranatha is Aramaic — preserved untranslated in the Greek text.

The Two Possible Divisions

The Aramaic word is a compound of three elements: maran (our Lord) + a form of the verb atha (to come). The challenge is that ancient Greek manuscripts were written without word spacing, and the Aramaic original could have been divided two different ways:

• Marana tha (מָרַנָא תָא) — "Our Lord, come!" An imperative plea. The pronoun -ana is "our"; tha is the imperative form of "come."
• Maran atha (מָרַן אֲתָא) — "Our Lord has come." A declarative statement. Atha is the perfect form of "come."

Both readings are grammatically possible. Modern scholarship, after examination of the earliest post-apostolic usage (especially the Didache), strongly favors the imperative reading: "Our Lord, come!"

The Didache Evidence

The Didache (Διδαχή, "Teaching"), a Christian manual probably written in the late first or early second century, preserves the word in a liturgical context. Chapter 10, at the end of a eucharistic prayer, reads:

Didache 10:6 — "Let grace come and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen."

The context is unmistakably a prayer looking forward — "let grace come," "let this world pass away" — which fits the imperative reading "Our Lord, come!" better than the declarative "Our Lord has come." This is the earliest post-New-Testament attestation of the word, and it points toward the imperative.

The Echo in Revelation 22:20

The last recorded prayer of the New Testament appears to be the Greek translation of Marana tha:

Revelation 22:20 — "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

The Greek is erchou kyrie Iēsou — "Come, Lord Jesus." The imperative and the vocative match the Aramaic Marana tha so closely that most commentators read the Revelation verse as a Greek rendering of the Aramaic prayer. This supports the conclusion that the earliest Christian liturgy included a plea for Christ's return — in both Aramaic (Palestinian Christianity) and Greek (diaspora churches).

Why Paul Preserved the Aramaic

That Paul, writing in Greek to a Greek-speaking Corinthian church, left this word untranslated in Aramaic is itself informative. A few related cases:

• Abba (Aramaic, "Father") — preserved in Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6, and Mark 14:36 (Jesus's Gethsemane prayer).
• Amen — the Hebrew word transliterated and left untranslated throughout the New Testament.
• Hosanna — Hebrew/Aramaic preserved in Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9.

Aramaic and Hebrew phrases preserved in Greek generally mark liturgical formulas — fixed expressions carried over from early Aramaic-speaking Jewish-Christian worship in Jerusalem. Maranatha belongs to this category. The Corinthians presumably already knew the word from Christian assembly. Paul uses it as a signature of shared worship vocabulary.

The Pairing With Anathema

Paul pairs the words starkly: Anathema. Maranatha. The first is a Greek word meaning "devoted to destruction" (LXX uses it to translate Hebrew cherem, "under the ban"). The second is an Aramaic prayer for Christ's return. The juxtaposition at the letter's close links final judgment with Christ's arrival — a common pairing in the New Testament (see 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10).

Meaning in Summary

• Maranatha — Aramaic for "Our Lord, come!" (preferred reading)
• A liturgical prayer from earliest Aramaic-speaking Christianity.
• Preserved in Paul's Greek letter as a signature of shared Christian worship vocabulary.
• Echoed in the closing words of Revelation: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."