To understand the power of the Semitic triliteral root, consider the grammatical, functional, empirical, and, thus, anti-Platonic literary interconnection between DaBaR (word), keDoBRam (pasture), yaDBeR (subdued), watteDaBBeR (destroyed), beDaBBeRo (at his speaking), miDBaRek (your mouth), and miDBaR (wilderness). Only in the original Semitic do we hear and see the consonantal link between the shepherd’s pasture, the utterances of God, the wilderness, and the subduing—even the destruction—of those who hear his words. “His dabar,” Fr. Paul Tarazi writes, “is administered in the wilderness and proceeds from his shepherd’s mouth while the sheep’s dilemma lies in that the utterly non-Platonic, non-Shakespearian ‘to obey or not to obey’ is not even the question. It does not matter whether a ‘baa’ is emitted or not. Obeying maintains the life that the sheep is already enjoying, while disobedience posits the same sheep as ’obed (unto destruction) as an Aramean by himself in the wilderness.”; Tarazi, Paul Nadim. The Rise of Scripture. OCABS Press, 2017, p. 296.

Richard and I discuss Luke 4:28-30. (Episode 498)