Despair and Light

Every dynasty insists on its permanence. Every people clings to the hollow echo of its own voice. Every generation invents its own despair and dares to call it light. Yet Scripture unmasks the fragility of these human building projects.

The voices of despair rise in the camp, soothing themselves with stories of morality, while kings and judges build false legacies and nations carve idols in the light of their own eyes. Again and again, the words of God cut across this chorus, splitting the false consolation of narrative with the constellation of Abrahamic function: exposing human futility with divine riddle, and announcing what no human voice can summon: the surplus of grace and light. Or perhaps, when hope is gone and the fall seems final, it descends for you not as light but as despair.

Can you even tell the difference? Are you still confused about the Shepherd’s identity? Yes, you are. Because you are a Westerner. And now even the East has turned West. All of you are talking about yourselves.

Catch up quickly, ḥabībī. God is written. God does not forget. God does not turn. And God, as the Apostle said, is not mocked.

This week, I discuss Luke 8:41.

The functions י־א־ר (yod-alef-resh, “shine”, “light”) and י־א־ש (yod-alef-shin, “despair”) share the same first two letters (י + א). Only the last letter is different: resh (ר) for shine, shin (ש) for despair. In Semitic languages, this kind of overlap often forms a word-family or cluster where similar-looking roots embody opposite meanings. The placement and structure leave the door open to hear and see them as two edges of the same blade—one edge to shine, the other to despair. The Arabic cognate يَئِسَ (yaʾisa, “to despair”) expands this constellation of function, confirming the polarity as it treads across the breadth of Semitic tradition. (HALOT, pp. 381-382)

In both the Gospel and the Qur’an, the sword of Pauline Grace hangs above the scene. On one edge is the people’s despair: sharp, cutting, self-inflicted, and final. On the other edge is God’s light: sharper still, decisive, and life-giving. Scripture allows no compromise between the two. One voice must be silenced: the word of the people falls, and the word of God stands, forever.

The root carries the function “to fall, fall down, be slain, collapse, fail; to fall in battle, collapse in death, or prostrate,” and in its semantics it denotes a sense of finality, the collapse of life or order.

According to Lane’s Lexicon, the root ن-ف-ل (nūn–fāʾ–lām) indicates “he gave without obligation, akin to Pauline grace as a free gift” (نَفَلَ nafala), “that which falls to a man’s lot without his seeking it” (نَفْل nafl), or “booty, spoil, bounty” (أَنْفَال anfāl), while Tāj al-ʿArūs describes it as “that which falls (يَقَعُ yaqaʿu) to someone’s portion.” This resonates with Paul’s use of χάρις (charis, grace), where salvation is not earned but freely given: “For by grace [χάριτί (chariti)] you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Likewise, Paul stresses that justification comes “being justified as a gift [δωρεάν (dorean)] by his grace [τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι (te autou chariti)] through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

In the Qur’an, Paul’s teaching is carried forward from Luke, and the function of the fall is inverted: human failure becomes a gift, a “surplus”, not the false surplus of the billionaire abundance mafia, but what God allots beyond human expectation. Where Hebrew נ־פ־ל (nun-fe-lamed) and Greek πίπτω (pipto) establish the fall as collapse, ruin, and death, Arabic ن-ف-ل (nūn-fāʾ-lām) reshapes the same constellation into grace: what falls to one’s portion without effort, the unearned bounty. Thus, the Jairus mashal, where the daughter falls into death yet rises as a surplus of life, finds its perpetuation in the term’s Qur’anic itinerary: the fall itself becomes the site of God’s grace.

Judges were intended to function as earthen vessels: temporary saviors raised up by God to deliver Israel, re-establish order under the Torah, and cultivate dependence on him and him alone. Instead, like all dynastic bureaucrats, they mistook the spoils of God’s victory as their own possession, converting deliverance into personal legacy. Jair’s brief rule in Judges (10:3-5) perfectly illustrates this failure: his thirty sons, riding on thirty donkeys, ruling thirty towns, embody administration without light, wealth without instruction, and dynastic order without deliverance. His reign becomes an ironic commentary on his own name, יָאִיר (yaʾir, “he enlightens”), since no light shone in the darkness of his generation. This hollowness is what the book hammers home in its refrain: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). The refrain is not a nostalgic longing for David’s throne; it is a cry for the reign of God: for the true King whose instruction alone brings light, whose deliverance cannot be seized as human legacy, and whose word alone interrupts the cycle of despair in life:

Unlike Tola, whose obedience to God “saved Israel” after Abimelech’s violent reign, Jair’s rule is not marked by divine deliverance but by the vanity of human laws, administration, and dynastic control. Again, his reign is summed up in the ledgers of greed: thirty sons, riding on thirty donkeys, ruling over thirty towns in Gilead. The triple thirty highlights not liberation but bureaucracy: a system of inherited privilege, nobility, and local authority spread across a patchwork of encampments. The repetition of חַוֹּתחַוֹּת יָאִיר (ḥawwot yaʾir, “the tent-villages of Jair”) identifies him with Jair son of Manasseh (Numbers 32:41; Deuteronomy 3:14), rooting his name in self-referential territorial identity. Ironic, for a people who dwell in tents, but no less ironic than his name. Despite a name that means יָאִיר (yaʾir, “he enlightens”), his rule produces no light or instruction, only the semblance of order and false stability, a disbelief alluded to in the Qurʾan (12:87). In contrast, Jairus in Luke 8 fulfills the name’s assigned promise. When his daughter falls into death, the human community voices the same despair. Still, God’s anointed Judge interrupts Jairus with true enlightenment, transforming human despair with the light to the nations. Thus, the functional “Jair” of Judges embodies human rule “in one’s own eyes,” while Jairus in Luke becomes the earthen vessel through whom God implements his powerful rule, revealing the “surplus” of his Pauline grace.