Readings

by Rick Dietrich

Amen. Consider “Amen.”

This issue’s column would not have been possible without the kind co-operation of Messrs. Moulton and Geden; of Gerhard Kittel, ably assisted by Heinrich Schlier and Geoffrey W. Bromiley; of Carly Simon on the radio; not to mention the always gracious Jane Hines. To you, Jane. Amen.

We usually think of the word as a conclusion — particularly of a prayer: “… for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” So be it. That is the way the word is used pretty much throughout the Old Testament (where the Hebrew is amn, “amen”). It is used both individually and collectively in response to the praise of God. Thus, at the end of Psalm 41 — and the first book of the psalms: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”

It is also used to affirm the will of God and signal one’s intention to follow it as in 1 Kings 1:36, where Benaiah responds to David’s order to him, Zadok, and Nathan to anoint Solomon next king over Israel, “Amen! May the LORD, the God of my lord the king, so ordain.” Jeremiah uses it similarly to confirm God’s promise and curse, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be anyone who does not heed the word of this covenant,” that I will be your God and you my people. “Then I answered, ‘Amen, LORD’” (Jeremiah 11:5).

The word passes directly into the New Testament in its Greek form amên. There again it answers praise to God as in the Lord’s Prayer or in Revelation 5, when the four living creatures around the throne acknowledge the song of praise of “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and in the sea” to God and to the Lamb. “Amen,” the four say, as they fall down in worship (5:14). The New Testament “amen” also acknowledges and accepts the will of God, as in the first chapter of Revelation. “Look!” John says, “He is coming!” And he is; so John responds to his own prophecy, “Yes. Amen!”

In short, as Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann used to say (in quite different circumstances), “That’s the truth.”

But Jesus uses the word at the beginning of statements any number of times (30 in Matthew alone). Of those who trumpet their own generosity, of those who pray ostentatiously, of those who wear their fasting on their faces, and of those who give a cup of cold water to someone who needs it, “Verily I say unto you, They shall have their reward” (6:2, 5, 16; 10:42). That’s the King James translation, “Verily,” meaning according to the OED, “in truth or verity; as a matter of truth or fact; in deed, fact, or reality; really, truly.” That’s what the Revised Standard Version has: “Truly.” Both are good translations. Recognizing that the word is emphatic, the NIV is even stronger, if unfortunately it makes Jesus sound a bit like Edith Ann: “I tell you the truth . . . .”

As a sometime poet, I’m interested in how words accumulate meaning not only from the way they are used in different contexts but from the order in which they appear in their contexts. Amen confirms what is reliable and true both at the end of a statement, as a response to it — “Amen, brother” or “That’s the truth” — and at the beginning of a statement, to attest to it, “Truly, I say to you,” or (to counter Edith Ann with Dave Barry), “I’m not making this up.”

So finally, when we come to the end of Revelation 3, the little letter to those lukewarm Laodiceans, we are aware that the Amen is “faithful,” “a true witness.” And we are aware that he is not only “the origin of God’s creation” (3:14), its beginning, he is its end as well—its purpose from everlasting to everlasting. All that is wrapped up in one four-letter word.

I’m not making this up. It’s the truth. That’s what I’m saying. Word! (To you, Jane.) Amen.