Day 59 of 75 · Parables and teaching
ʾ-K-L
ekhal: eat
אכל · למאכל
ܐܟܠ · ܠܡܐܟܠ
The feel
Ekhal is to eat: take food into the body, consume it, even devour it. Crowds eat and are filled on a hillside, birds eat seed from the path, moth and rust eat stored treasure. The word can sit at a table or strip a field.
The root family
| Form | Pattern | Transliteration | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|
| ekhal | Peal verb, perfect | ekhal | אכל ܐܟܠ | to eat | to eat · to consume · to devour (84 occurrences; PA / DJPA attested) |
| l-mekhal | Peal infinitive | l-mekhal | למאכל ܠܡܐܟܠ | to eat | something to eat (Matthew 25:35) |
| akhel | Peal active participle | ākhel | אכל ܐܟܠ | eating | eating: "the Son of Man came eating and drinking" (Luke 7:34) |
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 | ekhal | to eat, consume, devour: the working stem throughout the corpus |
| Ethpeel | etʾekhel | to be eaten (grammar scaffold); not attested in this corpus |
| Aphel | awkel | to feed, give to eat (standard Syriac grammar); the sayings quoted here use "give to eat" (yab l-mekhal) instead |
| Pael / Ethpaal / Ettaphal | — | not attested in this corpus |
Stem table is a grammar scaffold: how Aramaic bends one root through voice and cause.
In his voice
Matthew 6:25 · interlinear
So I tell you: do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
mana tekhlun : "what you will eat." The verb of survival named first among the worries, then set inside a larger claim: life outweighs its own menu.
Matthew 13:4 · interlinear
As he scattered the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
ekhaltheh : "ate it up." The devour edge of the root: the same verb that fills a crowd can strip a path bare in a moment.
Matthew 25:35 · interlinear
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in.
l-mekhal : "to eat." In the judgment scene the verb goes quiet and practical: not a doctrine held but a plate handed over.
Practice
Eat one bite with complete attention: notice your reaching, the taste, the swallow, and the life carried forward by it. Then give someone hungry something to eat.
Say ekhal aloud, then name what eats, what is eaten, and whether the act nourishes or consumes.
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.