Maranatha Meaning: The Ancient Prayer Come, Lord

It survived untranslated. When the New Testament was written in Greek, one little Aramaic prayer was left in its original form — too precious to the earliest Christians to render into another language. That word is maranatha.

The maranatha meaning is, simply, "Come, Lord" — but behind those two words lies the deep longing of the first believers for the return of Jesus. It is one of the oldest prayers in the church, and one of the most hopeful. As one of the key Greek and Hebrew words in the Bible, maranatha carries history in a single breath.

Here is what maranatha means, where it appears, and why this ancient word still matters.

The maranatha meaning and its language

Maranatha is Aramaic — the everyday language Jesus and his first followers spoke. Depending on how the original syllables are divided, it can be read as "Marana tha" ("Our Lord, come!") or "Maran atha" ("Our Lord has come"). Most scholars favor the first: a prayer, a cry for the Lord to return.

It appears at the close of one of Paul's letters: "Come, Lord! [Maranatha]" (1 Corinthians 16:22). The very fact that Paul, writing in Greek to a Greek-speaking church, kept this Aramaic word untranslated tells us something: it was already a treasured, well-worn prayer in the earliest church, passed along in its original form like a family heirloom.

Why the early church prayed it

The first Christians lived with intense expectation that Jesus would return. Maranatha captured that hope in a word. It was likely used in worship and at the Lord's Supper, a community breathing out its deepest longing: that the risen Lord they loved would come back and make all things right.

This longing runs all the way to the Bible's final pages, where almost the last words of Scripture echo the same prayer: "Come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20). Maranatha is the Bible's closing heartbeat.

A note on an heirloom word

It's worth pausing on how rare it is for a word to cross language barriers untranslated. The same thing happened with a handful of other terms — "amen," "hallelujah," "abba" — words so embedded in the worshiping life of God's people that translating them felt like losing something. Maranatha belongs to that small, precious set. When you pray it, you are using almost the exact sounds the first generation of Christians used, in the language Jesus himself spoke. Few prayers connect us so directly to the church's very beginning. That continuity is part of its power: across two thousand years, the longing has not changed, and neither has the word for it.

Praying maranatha today

Maranatha is a prayer you can still pray, and it speaks to more than the distant future. To pray "Come, Lord" is to invite Jesus into the present — into the broken places of your life and the world that still need his coming. It is a prayer of hope that refuses to accept that things will always be as they are, because the Lord we long for is coming. When the world feels dark, maranatha is a defiant, hopeful breath.

Praying the maranatha meaning today

Hold onto the maranatha meaning as a prayer you can still breathe: "Come, Lord." It longs for Christ's return and invites him into the broken places of now — a defiant, hopeful word for dark days.

Frequently asked questions

What does maranatha mean?
Maranatha is an Aramaic word meaning "Come, Lord" (or, divided differently, "Our Lord has come"). Most scholars read it as a prayer for the return of Jesus, used by the earliest Christians.

Where does maranatha appear in the Bible?
It appears in 1 Corinthians 16:22, where Paul closes his letter with the Aramaic prayer "Come, Lord!" Its meaning is echoed at the very end of Revelation, "Come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

Why is maranatha left untranslated?
Paul wrote in Greek but kept this Aramaic word in its original form, indicating it was already a treasured, well-known prayer in the early church — like an heirloom too precious to translate, alongside words like "amen" and "hallelujah."

How can I pray maranatha today?
Pray it as "Come, Lord" — both longing for Christ's final return and inviting him into the broken places of your present life and world. It is a prayer of defiant hope that things will not always remain as they are.

Written by Hannaniah, an ordained minister and seminary professor based in California. For more, see 1 Corinthians 16 on Bible Gateway or Bible Hub.