In Matthew 27:46, the author quotes Jesus, first transliterating his words with Greek letter (NA28 | ESV):
ηλι ηλι λεμα σαβαχθανι;
Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?
He then translates into Greek:
Θεέ μου θεέ μου, ἱνατί με ἐγκατέλιπες;
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
In the parallel account in Mark 15:34, the transliterated text reads (NA28 | ESV) :
ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι;
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
This is again translated into Greek:
Ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με;
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The transliterated part is different just by two letters. (The Matthean account lengthens the first vowel ē and drops a syllable ō from Mark's Eloi). The Greek is different in a couple small ways that aren’t readily translatable.
The Hebrew of Psalm 22:2 reads (BHS):
אֵלִ֣י אֵ֭לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי
This comes into the LXX (21:2), quoting Rahlfs:
Ὁ θεὸς ὁ θεός μου….ἵνα τί ἐγκατέλιπές με;
There are several text variants for the Mark passage, but if we assume the NA28 is correct:
Is there a satisfactory way to understand the relationship between the Matthew quote, the Mark quote, Psalm 22, and what was likely spoken? In particular:
- Is there any evidence that it was normal a normal pattern of speech to toss in a Hebrew אלי amidst an otherwise Aramaic sentence?1 (That sounded flippant, but this seems plausible to me.)
- Does Mark's version correspond precisely to an Aramaic translation of Psalm 22:2?2
- Do the differences in the Greek translations offered by the authors have anything to do with the differences in the Hebrew/Aramaic of the quotations?3
1. My understanding is that Ἠλὶ is Hebrew and the remainder of both quotes is Aramaic, but I’m vaguely aware that there’s an argument to be made for more of it being Hebrew, so I’m happy to hear that.
2. I haven’t been able to find a good date for the Psalms Targum, but it appears to be a little different. (I don’t read Aramaic.)
3. Mostly I’m curious about this true vocative “Θεέ” in Matthew, whereas Mark (and every other NT writer to my knowledge) uses a nominative-for-vocative θεός with the article. Although it's not elsewhere in the NT, there are several (8 that I found) usages of “Θεέ” in the LXX, but not at Psalm 21:2, so I’m not sure where it came from in Matthew.