Camel or Rope?

Camel or Rope? It has been argued that Jesus’ use of the word camel at Matthew 19:24 was really a humorous play on words. For if he was speaking Aramaic (which many claim that he was), the word he used was gmla, which can be translated as either camel and rope. Why were camels called ropes? Because the ancients used descriptive words for animals. So, horses were called hypos (translated as mounts) and camels were called ropes, which referred to the way they were led. On the other hand; if Jesus spoke Greek (which we doubt), he would have called the animal a camelon. And though camelon likely came from the same root as the more ancient Aramaic word, it only meant camel in Greek (not rope). As you can see; if Jesus said gmla (in Aramaic), he was really saying that it would be easier to ‘thread a rope through the eye of a needle,’ which in the context makes more sense than camel. And this amusing play on words (camel/rope) would have helped his listeners to remember the idea of his parable.