In Mark 15:34-37,
"At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” 36 And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
In Matthew 27:46-50,
And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”[q] 50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.
This is a quote from Psalm 22 in the MT:
אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי = "Eli, Eli, lamah azavthani"
In the Septuagint it is:
ὁ θεὸς ὁ θεός μου πρόσχες μοι ἵνα τί ἐγκατέλιπές με = "oh theos, oh theos ..."
My question is this. The people respond to his outcry thinking that he is calling to Elijah. Is there some logical reason why this quote from Psalm 22 would make them think that he was calling for Elijah?
I am thinking that what the author here is doing is illustrating that Jesus is surrounded by Jews that understand the scripture enough to know who Elijah is, but who don't recognize basic Hebrew/Aramaic for "my God" (Eli) and mistake it for him calling out to Elijah instead of God (because they didn't speak/read hebrew/aramaic). If these were Greek Jews, they would only recognize the septuagint quote above: "Oh Theos"...
Or is there some other connection that I am missing here that would tie this verse to Elijah. It feels like the author of Mark (copied into Matthew) is criticizing the crowd for being too hellenized... I think the dropping of the omega (Eloi to Eli) in Matthew is interesting too. Any thoughts as to why that difference is there?
