Reconciling Insufficiency
My mother was born in Bethlehem, Palestine, a land where hospitality is not sentiment, not a virtue to be cultivated, but obedience. It is not taught, debated, or defended. It is enacted. The land itself bears witness to a scriptural way of life that precedes institutions, borders, and claims of authority. The earth remembers what human beings forget. It remembers what it means to live under decree rather than under ownership.
Scripture itself is formed by this memory. It speaks in a Semitic grammar in which unity precedes sequence and must never harden into possession. Genesis opens not with “the first day,” but with yom eḥad, one day. Creation does not begin with order imposed over time, but with a complete, bounded unity named before anything is divided or accumulated. Wholeness precedes sequence. Unity precedes control.
Arabic preserves this same grammar. Like Biblical Hebrew, Arabic counting does not begin with an ordinal. One says yawm wāḥid, one day, not “the first day.” Ordinals only begin with “second,” al-yawm al-thānī. Linguistically, “one” does not mark position. It marks unity, closure, and intelligibility. Only once unity is given can differentiation follow. Counting does not produce wholeness. It presupposes it.
This is not a linguistic curiosity. It is a refusal written into the language itself. Scripture does not allow the world to be treated as an object assembled piece by piece. The land is first named as a whole before it is ever divided. Life is first declared worthy before it is ever administered. Unity is given, not achieved.
That is why in that land, people did not write treatises on coexistence. They did not construct ethical systems to justify themselves. They lived. They lived because Scripture was never an abstraction. It was not an idea to be mastered but a Command to be obeyed. Hospitality was not a moral accomplishment but a reflex, the uncalculated response of those who know that they are not masters. The outsider is received not because one has reasoned it to be good, but because this is what life looks like on land that belongs to someone else.
Israel in the Scriptural text is itself constituted according to this same grammar. Twelve is not a governing structure but a symbolic totality, the whole addressed by God for a purpose. The Twelve in the Gospels function the same way. They do not rule. They signify. They address Israel as a whole, not as an institution to be preserved. Once that address has been made, unity is not hardened into continuity. It is released.
Paul’s mission embodies this release. What was gathered symbolically is carried outward. Election is not converted into ownership. Unity is not turned into administration. It is sent, so that the nations may be addressed.
Scripture consistently contrasts this covenantal unity with another numerical grammar. The nations appear as ten, the number of human totality, the fullness of empire and power. Ten names what human beings claim when they totalize, when they consolidate, when they rule. Scripture does not resolve history by allowing twelve to rule ten. It resolves history by confronting ten through twelve, by addressing power without becoming power.
God alone remains uncounted and undissolved, because God is not one element within the sequence. God is the unity that makes all counting possible. God is not the first proprietor among others. God is the only Proprietor.
That is why what happened in Gaza was wrong. Not because one group could assemble better arguments about history or entitlement. It was wrong because mothers and children were killed. This is not political speech. It is witness. The decree that rendered the land worthy is the same decree that rendered every life upon it worthy. To violate that life is not to offend an ideology but to profane what was entrusted. Those who claimed the land while denying the life upon it testified against themselves. They forgot the one thing Scripture never negotiates.
There is only one Proprietor.
Scripture arose to interrupt such forgetting. When kings enthrone themselves and devour, when power names itself necessity, when land is reduced to possession rather than received as inheritance, Scripture speaks. It does not bargain. It does not flatter. It calls heaven and earth to witness. The land does not belong to those who conquer it, nor to those who administer it, nor to those who explain it away. It belongs to the One who provides it. Everything that breathes upon it is under his protection, whether rulers approve or not.
There is only one Ruler.
Those who lived there knew this without commentary or defense. When neighbors arrived from Europe, speaking other tongues and carrying other memories, the question was never whether they had a right to be there. They came. They were received. Some remained. That was not the transgression. The transgression came when the memory of Scripture was erased by claims of ownership, when inheritance was renamed possession, when sovereignty displaced obedience.
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. I am not formed by charters, statutes, or arrangements of power. What governs my path is older and heavier than law. My neighbor is not determined by documents but by encounter. Those who have come to this place, as others once came to the land of my mother’s birth, are my neighbors because they have been placed in my path by him and because they walk upon land that is not mine. This land too belongs to the same Proprietor. And because he has deemed it worthy, all who dwell upon it are worthy, whether they are welcomed or rejected, named or erased.
By his decree, I am a Minnesotan, just as surely as all who dwell herein, every fragile life bearing the terrible gift of his living breath.
Hear the word of the Lord. Every encounter is a divine summons. The mother. The child. The worker who serves your food. The one who teaches God’s children. Do not deceive yourself. It is not them you face. It is the One who holds their breath in his awesome and terrible hand.
Surely, he is not mocked.
You fools!
Who is like God?
This week, I discuss Luke 9:1.
This episode is offered in memory of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, whose voice the land itself lifts before God.
“And he called together [συγκαλέσας (sugkalesas)]
the twelve [τοὺς δώδεκα (tous dodeka)] and gave them power
and authority over all the demons and
to heal diseases [νόσους (nosous)].” (Luke 9:1)
συγκαλέω (synkaleo) / ק-ר-א (qof–resh–alef) / ق–ر–أ (qāf–rāʾ–hamza)
Across the Semitic scrolls, the root ק־ר־א / ق–ر–أ names a single, unified action: to call aloud. It covers proclaiming, summoning, reciting, and reading aloud without separating them into distinct conceptual domains. The act is always vocal, public, and final.
In Hebrew, קָרָא (qaraʾ) indicates to call, proclaim, or read aloud. Reading is not silent decoding but a voiced utterance that places both speaker and hearer under what is spoken. In Arabic, قَرَأَ (qaraʾa) likewise indicates to read aloud or recite, preserving the same logic, most clearly heard in the word Qurʾan, “that which is recited.”
Reading is voicing, calling is utterance. Authority does not reside in the possession of a text or the mastery of supposed “meaning”, but in the act of sounding words into the world. To qaraʾa / קרא is not to control speech, but to submit to it by giving it voice.
“Pharaoh also called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] the wise men and the sorcerers, and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts.” (Exodus 7:11)
The itinerary begins under tyranny. Confronted by a divine act that exposes his limits, Pharaoh calls in order to retain control, summoning rival experts to simulate power and suppress obedience to God’s word. Calling functions as domination.
“Now Joshua called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] the Gibeonites and said to them, ‘Why have you deceived us, saying, “We are very far from you,” when you are living within our land?’” (Joshua 9:28)
The call moves from imperial control to covenantal adjudication. Deception is addressed not to reassert tyranny but to assign a place within Israel, transforming false distance into ordered belonging under God’s rule.
“Then Joshua called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] for all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, ‘Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings.’” (Joshua 10:24)
The call exposes defeated power. Joshua summons witnesses so that Israel learns not to fear kings. Calling here dismantles human sovereignty rather than securing it.
“Then Joshua called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh,” (Joshua 22:1)
The call becomes release. Authority is exercised only to conclude obligation, restoring freedom and refusing to convert unity into ongoing control.
“And Joshua called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] for all Israel, for their elders and their heads and their judges and their officers, and said to them, ‘I am old and advanced in years.’” (Joshua 23:2)
The call gathers Israel at the edge of leadership’s end. Memory and instruction replace personal authority, preparing the people to live without a controlling figure.
“Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called [וַיִּקְרָא (wayyiqraʾ)] for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God.” (Joshua 24:1)
The call reaches covenantal fullness. Israel is addressed as a whole before God, not to establish administration but to choose obedience once leadership is withdrawn.
“She has sent out her maidens, she calls [קָרְאָה (qareʾah)] from the tops of the heights of the city:” (Proverbs 9:3)
The call leaves covenantal space and enters the public world. Wisdom speaks openly, without coercion or enforcement, establishing God’s hegemony outside the mechanisms of human judgment.
“For behold, I am calling [קֹרֵא (qoreʾ)] all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” declares the Lord; “and they will come and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem.” (Jeremiah 1:15)
The call now belongs exclusively to God. Nations are summoned without consent or awareness, exposing imperial power as subordinate to divine decree.
“‘In that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘every one of you will call [יִקְרָא (yiqraʾ)] for his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.’” (Zechariah 3:10)
The itinerary resolves after accusation is silenced. Joshua the high priest stands bearing communal impurity while the accuser prosecutes. No repentance is demanded and no defense is offered. God rebukes the accuser and restores without precondition, exposing the deeper sin, the attempt to secure life through legitimacy rather than decree. With accusation ended, calling descends into ordinary life. Speech no longer controls or judges but invites. Peace becomes possible because God’s wisdom now governs without human enforcement.
νόσος (nosos): The Biblical Function of Sickness
From condition, to manifestation, to imposition, to endurance, and finally to perception, the itinerary of sickness in biblical Hebrew shows that what Scripture names as sickness (nosos in Luke) cannot serve as a basis for human judgment. What the human eye sees does not disclose righteousness or guilt. Sickness in Scripture is not evidence for human judgment but a warning against it.
1. חֳלִי (ḥoli)
Sickness as condition, prior to visibility
The itinerary begins with ḥoli, sickness as a state of affliction. This is not a diagnosis. It names a condition of being struck, weakened, or under burden. In Deuteronomy and Hosea, ḥoli appears in covenantal contexts where the central question is how suffering is understood and responded to. At this stage, sickness is bound to judgment and response but has not yet entered the realm of appearance. Nothing can be seen, measured, or concluded.
2. תַּחֲלֻאִים (taḥaluʾim)
Sickness as visible manifestation
The itinerary moves from condition to manifestation. Taḥaluʾim is the plural of the same, gathering afflictions together as visible signs. What was once endured internally now appears externally. These sicknesses can be listed, pointed to, and displayed as evidence, inviting explanation and evaluation.
3. מחלה (maḥalah)
Sickness as imposed instrument
With maḥalah, sickness becomes something that can be given or withheld. In Exodus 15:26 and 2 Chronicles 21, illness is no longer merely endured or observed but administered. This marks a critical shift. Sickness is now treated as an instrument that can be attached to obedience or disobedience. Here the illusion of interpretive control emerges. Illness is easily used as proof of divine intent, and human judgment begins to emerge.
4. מַדְוֶה (madweh)
Sickness as duration that resists explanation
This is sickness not as event but as endurance, the long wearing down of life. Lingering illness resists clean interpretation. It is not dramatic enough to confirm judgment, nor absent enough to dismiss it.
5. עַ֫יִן (ʿayin) / ع-ي-ن (ʿayn–yāʾ–nūn)
Sickness as perception, and the collapse of judgment
The itinerary culminates not in the body but in the eye. In Job 24:23, sickness itself is no longer the problem. Perception is. The wicked appear secure. The afflicted appear abandoned. The eye reports stability where injustice persists and suffering where righteousness remains. Scripture exposes the failure of the entire interpretive system. What is seen does not reliably correspond to reality.
The lexicon places ʿayin here because the final crisis is not illness but interpretation itself. Sickness has become a matter of reputation and judgment, and the human eye has assumed authority it does not possess. The itinerary ends by dismantling the assumption that visible condition reveals divine verdict.
The function of sickness in Scripture is not to license judgment but to expose its futility. Judgment belongs to God alone.
“He provides them with security, and they are supported; And His eyes [עֵינָיו (ʿenayw)] are upon their ways.” (Job 24:23)“And be patient for the decision of your Lord, for indeed you are in Our eyes [بِأَعْيُنِنَا (bi-aʿyunina)], and exalt with praise of your Lord when you arise.”
(Qurʾan, Surah al-Ṭūr سورة الطور “The Mount” 52:48)
In Luke 9:1, the Twelve are not constituted as a new power. They are given authority over powers. The text is precise: authority is granted over demons, not over people, not over Israel, not over land. In the ancient imagination, these “demons” are not psychological abstractions. They are the gods, the spiritual powers bound to territories, regimes, cults, and systems of rule. They are inseparable from earthly authorities, because political power always presents itself as divinely backed.
This is why Luke pairs authority over demons with healing of diseases. Together they represent the two pillars by which domination sustains itself:
- spiritual legitimization (the gods)
- bodily interpretation (sickness as verdict)
Jesus dismantles both at once.
This dismantling follows the logic already declared in Zechariah 3. There, victory is not achieved by reform, conquest, or purification, but by decree. The accuser is silenced, not defeated in battle. Joshua, the high priest, does nothing. God rebukes Satan, removes the filthy garments, and restores without precondition. Victory is defined as the end of accusation and the collapse of the system that derives authority from them and their judgments.
The decree is not an abstraction:
“Each of you will call his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” (Zechariah 3:10).
Love of neighbor becomes possible only when the system of accusation and judgment has been withdrawn.
Luke 9:1 enacts that decree.
The Twelve are not elevated above Israel as rulers. They are earthen vessels, called together and then sent out to the Ten. Their authority is not institutional or administrative. It is a decree enacted, exercised only in proclamation and healing. They do not replace one hierarchy with another. They announce the collapse of a system in which gods justify power, and sickness justifies judgment.
Twelve signifies that Israel has been fully addressed, not that it is now fully controlled. Once the address is complete, unity is released outward. The Twelve do not consolidate authority; they disperse it. They preach. They heal. They unsettle the alignment between the gods and empire that once made domination appear necessary.
So Luke 9:1 does not found a ruling body. It commissions witnesses whose task is to proclaim that the powers governing the world, both seen and unseen, no longer have authority. Judgment does not belong to them. Nor does it belong to human eyes reading sickness or success as divine approval.
The Twelve stand as proof before the Ten that God’s authority now moves through speech and healing, not through domination. Victory is not the seizure of power but the withdrawal of its legitimacy. Power is exercised precisely by refusing to become power, because the decisive victory has already been spoken by decree.
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