sabachthani

Table of Contents:

• Sources
• The question marks were added later
• Hipta verse - shows how Greeks call chthonic powers
• The cry
• Saba (σαβα)
• Chthonie (χθονίη)
• Saba (σαβα) Cthonie (χθονίη)
• sabachthanie (σαβαχθανίη)
• Final, dead simple version
• Alternate translations

Sources

We have 2 sources of this utterance:

• Mark 15:34 (Greek New Testament, Nestle 1904)
• Matthew 27:46 (Greek New Testament, Nestle 1904)

• ἐβόησεν is from βοάω — “to cry aloud, shout, cry out” (LSJ)

This is not calm speech.
It is a loud vocal emission — exactly how ritual cries are described.

Same structure:

• loud cry
• doubled name
• phonetic variation (Ἐλωΐ / Ἠλί)
• same final sound-cluster

Matthew clearly copies the sound, not the grammar.
That’s why the spelling shifts.

The question marks were added later

The Greek question mark (;) is a Byzantine development, centuries later (8th–9th century CE). It does not appear in first-millennium gospel manuscripts (1st c. CE). No punctuation, and often no word spacings either.

So when modern printed editions or translations show:

...that punctuation is editorial interpretation, not transmitted text.

It's a cry here (not a question), and the question mark could denote uncertainty of the sound. σαβαχθανίη perhaps.

Mark himself adds a prose gloss afterward explaining the cry as if it meant “why have you abandoned me.” Later editors then retrojected that explanation back into the line by adding the question mark ";" punctuation:

• μεθερμηνεύω — “to translate, to explain, to interpret from one language into another”

He basically says:

Jesus cried out a sound, which people explain as “my god, my god, for what have you abandoned me?”

The question mark originates from Byzantine grammatical clarification of the translation line (not of the cry). In the scribal sequence, this question appeared first here, before sabachthani had it's ";" appended:

• εἰς τί — “toward what? for what purpose?”
• This is a legitimate interrogative phrase in Greek prose. A question mark makes sense here for the translation line, not for the cry.

Mark’s structure is:

cry → which is interpreted as → a Greek question

e.g.

Jesus cried out a sound, which people explain as “my god, my god, for what have you abandoned me?”

The cry itself is not a question.
The punctuation belongs only to the interpretation layer.
The cry itself is unpunctuated sound, and is an invocation.

When you see a question mark, you are not seeing Mark.
You are seeing a later grammatical decision imposed on Mark’s gloss.

Hipta verse - shows how Greeks call chthonic powers

Hipta matters because her hymn shows how Greeks call chthonic powers

In the hymn, the speaker does three very specific things:

1. They call the deity by name
2. They use incense / breath / smoke
3. They address her directly as an earth-power (χθονίη)

That is exactly the kind of speech happening in the cross-cry if you stay inside Greek ritual logic.

Hipta is not important because “Jesus = Hipta” (that would be nonsense).
Hipta is important because her hymn preserves the grammar of chthonic calling.

When Proclus writes:

μυστιπόλον τελετῇσιν ἀγαλλομένην Σάβου ἁγνοῦ

he shows that Σάβου / Saba- belongs to:

• initiation (τελετή)
• ritual joy / ecstasy
• incense and breath
• descent-oriented rites

So when you hear σαβα-χθαν-ίη, the Greek ear already knows:

“This is the sound used when calling an earth-power in a rite.”

Hipta gives us the dictionary of ritual behavior, not a doctrine.
She shows us what kind of utterance this is.

That’s why she’s relevant.

The cry

this line is not a saying.

It’s not a teaching.
It’s not a parable.
It’s not dialogue.

It’s a φωνή (phone) — a vocal event.

Greek authors only preserve those when:

• the sound mattered
• the moment mattered
• the meaning wasn’t propositional

That’s why only Mark preserves it first, and Matthew copies it.

Luke and John avoid it entirely — which tells you ancient authors already found it awkward to interpret, not easy to explain.

Saba (σαβα)

σαβα is not a word by itself.
It is a sound-cluster that belongs to Greek ritual language.

When Ancient Greeks hear σαβα-, they think:

• shaking bodies
• trance
• ecstatic movement
• awe that overwhelms the body
• initiation rites

That comes straight from σαβάζω (shake violently) and σέβας (religious awe).
Same sound family. Same cultic space.

So σαβα means something like:

“ecstatic awe”
“ritual shaking”
“initiation-force”

Not as a sentence. As a felt state.

“giving someone Saba” means to initiate them.
Think of inhaling the smoke from (herbal) sacrifice or incense.

Chthonie (χθονίη)

Now χθονίη (chthonie).

This one is a real grammatical word.

It means:

“O one of the earth”
“O chthonic mother”
“You who belong below”

You say χθονίη when you are calling an earth-power directly.

• χθονίη (chthonie) means “she of the earth.” Afterall, Sophia was the goddess of the earth, and Gaia (Earth) was feminine, while Ouranous (Heaven) was masculine. If you look at the Atticized variant of Hipta’s hymn, you’ll see χθονία (chthonia) instead. What’s cool about the Koine form here is that it brings the hymn back into direct address. When speaking to “chthonia” directly, you would say “chthonie.”

Saba (σαβα) Cthonie (χθονίη)

Now put them together:

σαβα χθονίη

Not a sentence.
Not grammar.
A call.

It means:

“Ecstatic, awe-bringing one of the earth”
“O chthonic power of initiation and shaking”
“O earth-mother who brings trance and descent”

Like a child yelling:

“Big scary mom of the ground!”

Not explaining. Calling.

sabachthanie (σαβαχθανίη)

σαβαχθανί — which we restore to σαβαχθανίη once the dying breath is accounted for. The trailing vowel is fading; the scribe hears something, not a clean ending, and later editors slap a question mark on it. But Greek manuscripts originally had no question marks, and Greek ritual speech does not invoke by asking questions.

Phonetically restored, σαβαχθανίη aligns with cultic sound-forms connected to Σάβου / Σάβα, which in Greek ritual language is about awe / shaking / initiation force. LSJ under σεβάζω gives the core sense as “to make sacred, to initiate with reverent awe.” Exactly the register Proclus preserves when he writes of Hipta, the chthonic mother, approached through incense and nocturnal rites.

Now connect this back to the cross-cry.

When you hear σαβαχθανίη, what the Greek ear hears is:

• σαβα- → ecstatic ritual awe / shaking / initiation force
• χθαν- → chthonic / earth / below
• -ίη → direct address (“O you!”)

So the meaning is not “why”.

The meaning is:

Calling out to a chthonic initiatory power as life leaves the body

That is why:

• the breath fades
• the ending vowel blurs
• the scribe writes sound, not grammar
• later editors panic and invent a question

Final, dead simple version

Jesus is not asking anything.

He is calling.

He is calling a chthonic initiatory power associated with:

• ritual awe (σέβας)
• shaking / trance (σαβάζω)
• descent into the earth (χθονίη)

The words sound broken because the breath is breaking.

That’s it.
That’s the whole thing.

Jesus was making an invocation to the earth mother, who brings initiatory shaking awe and descent into trance.

“Ecstatic, awe-bringing one of the earth”
“O chthonic power of initiation and shaking”
“O earth-mother who brings trance and descent”

This is the shout of a bacchant who is performing the mystery
What's crazy is that he got himself killed while performing the mystery itself.
He was supposed to enter "into death", and then come out in "ressurection", but his boy got clipped, and he ended up dazed on a cross, screaming out bacchic implications to the god.

Alternate translations

There's a few ways to chop it up, all more or less imply the same thing.

• Sabadzthana == Sabadz(ios) Thana(tos) (Σαβάζιος θανατος) - your dead Sabazios (saba-Zeus, or Dionysus)
  • σαβαχ = Sabadz(ou) (Σαβάζιος) - could be related to Σαβάζιος (Sabazios), the Thracian and Phrygian god of ecstasy, fertility, and wine, often syncretized with Dionysus
    • σαβάζω - from the polaskian side, from the kolchis era. comes this saba root. Long before any sumerian. (see Septuagint VS Masoretic Text - 100K Subs - Ammon Hillman Kipp Davis Mythvision - Gnostic Informant
  • θανί = Thana(tos) (θανατος) - death
  • Under extreme stress or fading death:
    • sabadz (Σαβάζ) could easily sound like sabach (σαβαχ) to the listener, under slurring it's plausible that ζ (dz or z - th sibilant) could easily sound like χ (ch - k fricative) depending on the language pronunciation of the time.
    • thana (a = ah as in father) sounds a lot like thani (i = ih as in sit), under slurring, it's plausible.
    • those trailing letters in () could be weakened voice or slurring in the moment of death.

• Sa Bach Thani (Σα βάχ θανι) - your dead Bacchus
  • σαβαχ = Sa Bach (Σα βάχ) - could be related to Βάκχος (Bacchus), the Dionysian god of ecstasy, fertility, and wine
  • θανί = Thani (θανι) - death

• Saba chthoni (σαβα χθανι) - your cthonic host
  • σαβα = Saba (σαβα) - host
  • χθανί = Chthani (χθανι) - cthonic/earth realm

• Saba chthonie (σαβα χθανιη) - O chthonic/earth-mother of initiatory awe and shaking
  • σαβα = Saba (σαβα) - initiatory shaking ecstatic awe during the descent into trance
  • χθανί(η) = Chthanie (χθανιη) - cthonic/earth goddess

Only one solid option. But those other 3 options sound directionally similar.
So we have some alignment!