🔼The name Malchus: Summary
- Meaning
- King, Reigning
- Etymology
- From the noun מלך (melek), king.
🔼The name Malchus in the Bible
The name Malchus occurs only once in the Bible. He was the unfortunate servant of high priest Caiaphas, whose right ear got cut off during the arrest of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Only John adds the detail that this man's name was Malchus and that the sword-wielding person was none other than Simon Peter (John 18:10). Only Luke submits that Jesus healed the ear (Luke 22:51).
This curious story is clearly linked to a familiar rule in the Torah, namely that when a Hebrew servant had served the time for which he had been hired, but he loved his master and wished to stay (and the master also wanted him to), the master would press a stylus through the ear of the slave into the door of the master's house (Deuteronomy 15:17). That would leave two marks, one in the slave's ear and the other in the master's door, and those two marks would line up as a testimony of the contract so agreed upon.
When Peter whacked off Malchus' ear, he destroyed the evidence of the deal between Malchus (king) and Caiaphas (high priest), presumably in an attempt to also annul the contract. By healing the ear, Jesus showed that violent destruction of evidence is no way to make the world a better place. Instead, the world is made a better place when every individual assumes an attitude of love and respect within the restrictions posed by the yet imperfect society at large (Ephesians 6:5).
🔼Etymology of the name Malchus
The name Malchus comes from the common Hebrew noun מלך (melek), meaning king:
מלך
The noun מלך (melek) means king, and a king is not merely a glorified tribal chief but the alpha of a complex, stratified society, implying a court and a complex government.
The Bible insists that a society must be governed by a triad of anointed sovereigns, namely prophets, priests and the king. A good king causes his people to be prosperous and peaceful whereas a bad one causes poverty and strife. The difference between the two is dictated by how close to the Law of Nature (a.k.a. the Word of God) the king operates. A kingdom that is wholly in tune with the Law consists of only sovereign individuals and is thus without a physical king.
An Aramaic cognate verb מלך (malak) means to consult, which confirms that the concept of royalty indeed evolved from wisdom and intellectual prowess rather than brute physical or political strength, as is commonly suggested.
From this noun derives the verb מלך (malak): to be or become king, the nouns מלכה (malka) and מלכת (meleket): queen or court-lady, the noun מלוכה (meluka): kingship or royalty, and the nouns מלכות (malkut), ממלכה (mamlaka) and ממלכות (mamlakut), meaning sovereignty or kinghood.
🔼Malchus meaning
For a meaning of the name Malchus, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads King. Spiros Zodhiates (The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary) appears to note that the noun is proposed to be pronounced as melek, whereas the name Malchus is spelled with an α (alpha), which might indicate that our name is a participle, drawn from the verb מלך (malak), meaning to be or become king, hence Reigning, or it's the Aramaic variant meaning Counselor.