Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” is a religious expression whose meaning becomes entangled with the name Eli. The novel first places it in Hakan’s final moments, where it can be heard both as a call to Eli and as Christ’s cry of abandonment; later, Eli repeats it amid a crisis in which others speak of keeping Eli alive through restraint. The phrase thus binds together devotion, misrecognition, and a request for help that does not receive a clear answer.

Meaning and biblical reference

The expression is identified by Staffan as the words Christ uttered on the cross. He explains that it means a cry to God and connects it to the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark. The reference gives Hakan’s words a meaning beyond the immediate scene: what first sounds like a name being called can also be understood as a religious appeal voiced at the edge of death.

That explanation does not settle what Hakan intended. His cry includes Eli’s name, and its position immediately before his final act makes the personal reading difficult to dismiss. Staffan’s account supplies a biblical frame, but it does not establish that Hakan was consciously quoting scripture, nor does it show whether he meant to call Eli, God, or both. The expression’s force lies partly in that unresolved overlap: an address to a person and an appeal to a divine listener occupy the same words.

The cry and its interpretation

After Hakan shouts the expression, he pours concentrated acid over his face. Later, Gunnar Holmberg is entering the previous night’s events into the homicide register when he raises the reported words with Staffan. The account comes from three people who were in the changing room. Gunnar Holmberg wonders about the phrase, and Staffan’s physical response—his heart leaping as he leans across the desk—shows that the words matter to him before he explains their religious association.

The exchange moves through competing interpretations. Gunnar Holmberg first asks whether Eli is a name; Staffan confirms that it is, then identifies the phrase’s religious meaning. Gunnar Holmberg initially takes it as a call to God and asks whether God heard. Staffan answers by locating the words in the story of Christ’s death. The discussion turns the homicide report into a small act of interpretation: witnesses preserve what was shouted, while Staffan and Gunnar Holmberg consider what those words might mean and whether the explanation belongs in the official record. The passage leaves the question of divine response open rather than resolving it.

Eli’s later recurrence

The expression returns in Eli’s thoughts during a separate scene. Eli has been told that the people responsible will keep Eli alive, even if that requires restraints, and that cooperation is expected. Against that language of management, Eli thinks of no longer being a person but a project, then repeats the expression as a plea for help. Its recurrence changes the emphasis of the earlier scene: the words are not only associated with Hakan and a reported cry before death, but also with Eli’s own sense of helplessness.

Here the biblical echo does not arrive as an explanation offered by another character. It appears within Eli’s private distress, adjacent to the thought of being reduced to an object of care and control. The passage does not say that Eli expects a particular answer, or identify the person or power from whom help is sought. It does show the expression returning at a moment when ordinary assurances of protection have not restored Eli’s sense of personhood.

Narrative significance

Across these appearances, the phrase connects two scenes without making them equivalent. Hakan’s shouted words become public testimony, repeated and interpreted by witnesses and officials; Eli’s recurrence is inward, a private appeal beside thoughts about being treated as a project. In both cases, the words emerge where a person’s ability to act or be understood is sharply constrained. The movement from an ambiguous spoken cry to an inward repetition gives the expression a continuing emotional charge without resolving its theological question.

Its central ambiguity is also linguistic. The same opening words can be heard as Eli’s name or recognized as part of a scriptural lament. That double hearing shapes the way Hakan’s last cry is received, while the later recurrence makes the phrase intimate to Eli’s experience as well. It therefore functions not as a settled statement of belief but as language poised between address and abandonment: a call that may be directed toward a beloved person, toward God, or toward a listener whose response remains uncertain.