Day 57 of 75 · Parables and teaching
L-Ḥ-M
laḥma: bread
לחמא
ܠܚܡܐ
The feel
Laḥma is bread, the staple a household measures security by. It means daily subsistence, close to the hands: taken, blessed, broken, given, requested by a child, scarce in a deserted place. The word smells of the oven before it means anything else.
The root family
| Form | Pattern | Transliteration | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|
| laḥma | noun, emphatic | laḥmā | לחמא ܠܚܡܐ | bread | bread (82 occurrences; Palestinian Aramaic attested) |
| laḥma d-sunqanan | construct phrase | laḥmā d-sūnqānan | לחמא דסונקנן ܠܚܡܐ ܕܣܘܢܩܢܢ | our daily bread | the bread we need (Matthew 6:11) |
Paradigm forms are a teaching scaffold from standard Aramaic grammar; corpus-attested words above are drawn from the glossary.
The verb stems
| Stem | Form | Sense |
|---|
| Peal | — | not attested for the "bread" family in this corpus: the root lives as a noun here |
| Pael / Ethpaal | — | not attested |
| Aphel / Ettaphal | — | not attested |
Stem table is a grammar scaffold: how Aramaic bends one root through voice and cause. Syriac does have a verb spelled from these consonants ("to fit, suit"), but it is a separate word-family and is not part of this lesson.
In his voice
Matthew 6:11 · interlinear
Give us the bread we need for today.
laḥma d-sunqanan : "the bread of our need." One line of the prayer given entirely to subsistence: today's bread, asked for today.
Matthew 7:9 · interlinear
Which of you, when your son asks for bread, would hand him a stone?
laḥma : bread as the child's plainest request. The argument about the Father's goodness runs through a loaf.
Matthew 26:26 · interlinear
While they were eating, Yeshua took bread, and after he blessed it he broke it. He gave it to the students and said, "Take it and eat. This is my body."
shqal laḥma : "he took bread." The staple, lifted at the last meal: took, blessed, broke, gave: four verbs the students had watched him do at every ordinary supper.
Practice
At your next meal, hold your bread or staple for one breath. Feel its weight. Ask only for enough today, release the wish for a year’s supply, then eat.
Say laḥma d sunqanan: the bread we need, ordinary bread, enough for today.
Connections
Witness note: the forms above rest on the Peshitta as the primary witness, with Palestinian Aramaic attestation marked where a Western source carries the word.