Mark 3:17

‘And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, and to them he gave another name, Boanerges, which is, Sons of Thunder.'

Along with Peter, James and John formed the inner three (see above). They have already been introduced to us previously, along with Peter's brother Andrew (Mark 1:16). It is likely that Jesus gave new names to all His disciples but the other new names tend to be ignored here, probably because they were not so prominent later on.

‘Boanerges', which Mark interprets as ‘sons of thunder' is a transliteration from the Aramaic or Hebrew as evident from ‘Boan(e)', presumably a corruption of Bene for ‘sons', possibly to render the pronunciation of a dialect. Some have seen the ‘rges' as ‘regesh' meaning ‘to rage, make a noise' (the related Arabic word is used for thunder). Another suggestion is the Aramaic ‘regaz' which signifies children of ‘anger'. A third alternative is ‘rogez' - ‘agitation, excitement', but used picturesquely for thunder in Job 37:2.

But as names given usually seem to have pointed at good characteristics ‘sons of thunder' may mean thundering against sin, and if ‘anger' then as anger against sin (Mark 9:38; Luke 9:54). This would explain why both are given the name. However, the fact that John finished up as the Apostle of love does not prevent him from having been a bit of a firebrand in his day, thus possibly earning from Jesus the gentle, good-humoured, good-natured reference to him as a ‘son of thunder'.