This is one of my favorite etymologies just because it’s so nice and easy. So, where do we get the word “Amen”? We get it from the Old English word “Amen”, which got the word from Latin “Amen”, which got the word from Greek “Amen”, which got the word from Hebrew “Amen”.
Isn’t that just amazing? Over thousands of years, the word is still the same. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any word go through so much time and so many languages without any changes.
But, what did this word “Amen” mean in Hebrew? Well, it seems that it could be used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. So, it could mean “truth”, “true”, or “truly”.
It’s related to the Hebrew verb aman, which means “to be firm”. So, if you have “Amen” soil, it’s firm soil. Or if you make an “Amen” statement, you are making a true/firm statement.
Whenever we see Jesus in the Bible saying “Truly, truly I say to you” or “Verily, verily I say unto you”, He’s just using the word Amen. It would be a perfectly correct translation to write that Jesus said “Amen, amen I say to you”. That’s what the Greek authors did when they included the Hebrew term Amen in their writings of what Jesus said. They just wrote it with Greek letters instead of Hebrew letters.
However, Luke’s Gospel is very fascinating on this front. Apparently, when he wrote the phrase “Truly, truly I say to you”, he actually translated the word Amen into the Greek word Alethos, which also means “truly”.
Every English Bible I’ve ever seen takes the same strategy that Luke did. They translate all those “Amen”s as “truly” and “verily” and “faithfully” instead of just keeping the word as “Amen”.
This also explains why people will sometimes shout out “Amen!” when they agree with something. It’s like shouting “absolutely!” or “that’s true!”.