The verb εργω (ergo) means to work and differs from the derived verb εργαζομαι (ergazomai), meaning to perform a job or task (see below), in that the original verb speaks of a doing that occurs in an uncultivated landscape (Genesis 3:17-19), whereas the younger verb deals with the performance of a process that arose from an already established larger economy.

This ur-verb εργω (ergo), meaning to labor in the wild, was already obsolete at the beginning of recorded Greek history, but it related to the verb ερδω (erdo), which was also an ancient verb that meant a more general to do; to undertake any action for whatever reason (which in the New Testament is mostly described with the verb ποιεω, poieo). All these words stem from the hugely old Proto-Indo-European root "werg-", meaning to do, from which also derive our English word "work" but also words like allergy, boulevard, lethargy, liturgy, metallurgy, surgeon and even organ (that with which one works) and thus organism and related terms.

A second (equally ancient) verb of the form εργω (ergo) means to shut in, up or out; to enclose. Why it is thought that these verbs are separate and not the same isn't clear to us here at Abarim Publications, because the beginning of agriculture is marked precisely by the act of isolating patches of earth to turn them into enclosed acres, pastures, pens and ultimately towns and cities (see the name Succoth, and a related issue with the verb χαιρω, chairo, meaning to rejoice or enclose). This second verb is also not used in the New Testament, but the ancient act of isolating for the purpose of protecting and cultivating sits of course at the very heart of the ideas of holiness and the natures of both Israel and of the church (Isaiah 5:1-7, John 15:19, Romans 11:17-24).

From our parent verb εργω (ergo) derive:

The important noun εργον (ergon) means work in the sense of job or task (hence ultimately our English word "energy"; see below). It's the parent noun of the verb εργαζομαι (ergazomai), meaning to perform a job or task (see below), but is itself a derivation of the verb εργω (ergo), meaning to labor. As noted above, the difference is that the original verb describes a doing that occurs in an uncultivated landscape, whereas the younger verb describes the performance of a process that arose from an already established larger economy.

In the New Testament our noun εργον (ergon) is used often as a near synonym of the much rarer nouns ποιημα (poiema) and ποιησις (poiesis), meaning "a doing" and "a thing done" (from the earlier mentioned verb ποιεω, poieo, to do), but the pervasiveness of the noun εργον (ergon), demonstrates that the Greeks saw most activities and goings on as part of the existing economy (as a reaction to previously done jobs) rather than something original (a reaction to something natural). That same distinction befalls the works or activities of Christ (Matthew 11:2, also see 5:16 and John 3:19) which are deeds and activities that are part of an already existing economy rather than deeds and activities that are foreign, invasive and thus ultimately disruptive. Likewise the works or activities of God (John 5:20) and those of his people (6:28) are deeds that continue, and of course improve, the present state of affairs rather than make something new out of nothing.

Nature is rigged in such a way that any "tree" will be cherished and cultivated for eons but if it won't produce the desired fruits, the entire tree will be uprooted and destroyed (Matthew 3:10) — which is what happened to the dinosaurs, Maya, Scythians; all of them. It hasn't been always clear what fruits the universe is looking for, but since a century or two scientists realize that the universe is programmed to grow as homogeneous as possible, and loving refer to this natural law as the second law of thermodynamics. Twenty-five centuries prior, the prophet Isaiah said it like this: "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain" (40:4; and for the specialists: if life counts as transfinite entropy, then the universe might prefer life over heat death).

The bottom line is that if any economy (call it one tower) does not diversify (become many little towers), the consistency of its members will deteriorate until they and their entire economy collapses. Today it's out of vogue to say that mankind is the crown of creation (many people still insist that evolution is a big random accident) but humans are much more diverse than any animal and with their language they are capable of far greater oneness. Ultimate diversity (everyone their own tower) and thus oneness among humans will be achieved when none of us is restricted in any way and all of us are autonomous. The Bible calls this personal autonomy a being anointed; Christ in Greek and Messiah in Hebrew.

Our noun εργον (ergon), meaning work, is used 174 times in the New Testament, see full concordance, and from it derive:

The adjective ραδιος (rhadios) means easy, easygoing or careless. It occurs frequently in the classics but is rarely positive (a conveniently "easy" passage, or a getting "better" of a sick person), more frequently neutral (as a mere statement of fact) and most often negative in that it reflects lack of effort, challenge or care, or even the making "light" of (a mocking of) a situation, person or thing.

Our adjective has nothing to do with our English word "radio", which stems from the Latin noun radius, meaning ray. Instead, it stems from an ancient particle ρα (ra), also meaning easy, which occurs in many variants — for instance the adverb ρεα (rea), easily, which rather resembles ρεω (reo), to flow, or ρεια (reia), which occurs in Homer's famous observation that the gods live easily (Il.6.138, Od.4.805) — and in many compounds with other verbs to make words that express an easy-to-do variant of said verb.

Our particle ρα (ra) is hard to explain from an Indo-European origin. But as we point out in our article on the many Hebrew roots of Greek, Greek has many words that are not European but rather Semitic, and were picked up along with the alphabet from the pre-Greeks' Phoenician trading partners. One particular employ of our particle ρα (ra), or so it is proposed, is in the adjective αραιος (araios), meaning thin, slender of being without substance. An identical (or perhaps the same) adjective means prayed against or cursed. That turns our attention to the Hebrew verb רקק (raqaq I), to be thin or weak, adjective רק (raq), thin, and adverb רק (raq), only or merely. Verb רקק (raqaq II) means to spit at or on, and noun רק (roq) means spittle.

Even more enticing is the verb רעע (ra'a'), to break, from which comes the noun רע (ra'), which is the common Hebrew word for evil, the opposite of שלום (shalom), which is commonly translated with peace but which literally means whole or unbrokenness. In Greek, the word for evil is πονηρος (poneros), which comes from the verb πενομαι (penomai), meaning to toil or labor. Its polar opposite is ελευθερια (eleutheria), or freedom-by-law.

One of a few key differences in Hebrew and Greek thought is that the Greeks idealized the absence of effort whereas the Hebrews idealized the absence of inefficiency. The Hebrews understood that darkness is not the opposite of light but the absence of it. Light is substantial, comes in hues, carries information, gives heat and life and propels things forward. Darkness, to the contrary, can't do any of that because there is nothing there to do the doing. Darkness is emptiness, but light is fullness. Light is substantial, and anything of substance starts with light. Light is both the ultimate building block from which everything that exists is made, and the cement that subsequently holds all things together (Colossians 1:16-17; also see our article on Relativity Theory in the Hebrew language).

Entirely likewise, foolishness is not the opposite of wisdom but the absence of it. Hate is not the opposite of love but the absence of it. Poverty is not the opposite of wealth but the absence of it. Machines, wisdom, love and wealth are constructions: synthetic complexes that were put together from the concerted efforts, the working-together, of virtuous people. Hence the PIE root teks-, meaning to weave, gave us English words like textile, text and technology (see Exodus 31:1-11), but also the Greek word τεκτων (tekton), which describes the job of Joseph and Jesus, not "carpenter" but rather "joiner" or "assembler".

Besides the vast bouquet of references to textile and clothing (from the fig leaves of Adam and Eve to Jesus' seamless garment, the white robes of the saints and Paul's favorite cloak that he left with Carpus at Troas), the quintessential Biblical go-to metaphor for any such synthetic complex is the image of a city (hence Genesis 4:17). And a city is a complex that is based on law, and a law is a set of regularities: things that happen the same way in any situation, so that events become predictable and people can invest in their future occurrence. This is why the New Jerusalem is a city and not a beach resort of a park: it's where the Law of God is completely fulfilled, and everybody exists in complete mastery of this Law, and plays reality like a fiddle with heavenly ease in the great orchestra of existence (hence the "secret chord that pleased the Lord" mentioned so eloquently by Leonard Cohen, which is the same "chord" that exist wherever atoms make a molecule, or wherever different cell types add up to one unified organism with one united soul, or many different multivocal authors add up to one Bible, or many ingredients make one spectacular meal).

Neither our adjective ραδιος (rhadios) nor its foundational particle ρα (ra) occur independently in the New Testament. Their only occurrence is in combination with the noun εργον (ergon), meaning work, which we discuss above. Together these two words form the verb ραδιουργεω (radiourgeo), meaning to do with ease, to "take things easy", mostly in the sense of to act thoughtlessly, recklessly or fraudulently, or to live lazily or to neglect. This verb is also not used in the New Testament but from it come:

The expletive ρακα (raka), which occurs in Matthew 5:22 only, is a transliteration of the Aramaic version of the Hebrew word רק (raq), thin or without substance (we discuss this word in the paragraph directly above). It comes from the verb רקק (raqaq I), to be thin or weak, which also comes with an adverb רק (raq), only or merely, which rather reminds of the familiar and ever useful Greek word ιδιωτης (idiotes), which means "in a category of their own" or more precise: "antisocial", as it stems from the adjective ιδιος (idios), meaning one's own or private, as opposed to public.

As we also note above, our verb רקק (raqaq I) is identical to רקק (raqaq II), which means to spit at or on, which expresses contempt and deliberately belittles the receiver. Both these verbs rather remind of the verb רעע (ra'a'), to break, from which comes the noun רע (ra'), shard or brokenness, which is the common Hebrew word for evil, which in turn is the opposite of the familiar term שלום (shalom), peace or rather wholeness or unbrokenness, as it derives from the verb שלם (shalem), to be or make whole or complete.

Jesus spoke somewhat facetiously of the broad road to destruction and the narrow gate to life (Matthew 7:13), and nobody in his original audience would have missed the pun: from the word for "broad", namely πλατυς (platus) comes the name Plato, the "father" of all forms of government that have to resort to law enforcement simply because of the opposition these governments face. The polar opposite of the Platonic Republic is the Hebrew Republic, which is the one that was initiated by Moses and Jethro (Exodus 18:19-22) and has been going strong ever since, sometimes with a king (whose sole job it was to guarantee and facilitate the Republic) but mostly without a king, sometimes with land but mostly without.

The crucial difference between the Platonic Republic and the Hebrew Republic is that the former is based on the enforcement of the will of some dominant player or party, and thus the submission and subjection of other players and parties, whereas the latter is based on the unhindered conversation between equally sovereign (albeit variously talented) individuals, who are subject only to God and his natural law, which is the law of freedom (James 1:25), or more precise: ελευθερια (eleutheria), that is freedom-by-law, and the rather anti-intuitive equivalent of law-by-freedom (because that's what the laws of physics are).

Unity exists only where there is no opposition (Romans 16:20), and where there is no opposition, there is also no law enforcement (1 Corinthians 15:24). But no man can know everything and a man's mental maturity shows not in what he knows but rather in how he reacts to something he doesn't know. Many people mock what they don't recognize (Jude 1:10), and those endowed with power very quickly take to eradicating whatever is strange and foreign. People of God, however, learn from what is unfamiliar and even love their enemies, but will by general principle never enforce their views on others. Every person has to square their own positions with God, and no person can judge any other (Matthew 7:1, James 4:12), because nobody knows what they don't know, and how much they don't know, and what use the weird other guy might have in God's perfect plan.

Our human bodies consist of trillions of cells. There are transparent eye cells, contracting muscle cells, well-connected nerve cells, unusually long-lived brain cells, and ... acid producing stomach cells, bile producing liver cells and poop producing bowel cells. These cells are incomparably different, but still they have one thing in common: the genetic code that sits inside each their own local heart, that each of them locally interprets as well as they can and in large part depending on the organ they exist in. If a liver cells tries to be an eye cell, or a brain cell tries to be a muscle cell, or if any cell fails to study their DNA, or their DNA get compromised, then the result is cancer. Every organism gets cancer all the time, but usually these cancerous instances are quickly identified by the body's immune system and rectified before it can spread. If it does spread, then the patient will enter into the physical equivalent of insanity, and ultimately die.

A transparent eye cell cannot exist without the acid producing stomach cell, but the two need to stay away from each other. It's precisely the same way in the Body of Christ. There are people within the Body of Christ who study the Bible to the best of their ability, and function by producing fruit that is somehow beneficial to the Body at large, but still are rarely recognized by the others as such. And there are others who take snazzy liberal views on the Bible, and charm their way onto platforms and pedestals and so cause a cancer that causes the congregation to lose consistency and spiral into pagan temptations and wokeness.

But the key to all this is that no single person can pass a just judgement on any other individual, and only the whole community combined may assess whether someone belongs or not. And if it is discovered that the person does not, it still does not mean that the person is evil, since they may still be a liver cell that accidentally walked into an eye.