Sing to the Lord a New Song

In every age, empires create words to describe the people in the societies they seek to dominate and exploit. Eventually, these terms are turned inward and used against themselves. The Greco-Romans—and their eastern heirs, whom modern scholars call the Byzantines—labeled those outside their empire as barbarians. 

The colonials who settled the Americas, after dismantling the peaceful coexistence of Semitic peoples in Southern Spain, referred to the inhabitants of this supposed “new” land as savages.

Whether communists, leftists, or terrorists, from age to age and generation to generation, we rely on the notion of the alien or foreigner to demonize the other.

Humanities scholars, clinging to the illusion of progress, speak as though they have just discovered this problem, but wisdom literature has tackled this since before Hellenism emerged as a blot on humanity’s historical record. 

When Jesus sets out to make a pilgrimage to Decapolis, he does so under the control of his Father’s will, who breathes into his sail and sends him on a mission—not to trample underfoot the barbarians at the edge of Constantine’s empire, but to confront Constantine himself. 

It is Constantine, Habibi, who is the problem. The Emperor is the barbarian from whom the Lord’s inheritance must be saved. 

This week, I discuss Luke 8:22, which exposes the true enemy of God, not the outsiders, but the emperor himself.

Show Notes

πλέω / מ-ל-א (mem-lamed-alef) / م-ل-أ (mīm-lām-hamza)

That which fills, makes full; fullness, full amount, measure, extent:

“Sing to the Lord a new song,
Sing his praise from the end of the earth!
You who go down to the sea, and all that fills it (וּמְלֹאוֹ umelo'o),
You islands, and those who live on them.” (Isaiah 42:10)

The root مَلَأَ (malaʾa) in Arabic can be found in words such as:

• مَلَأَ (malaʾa) - to fill
• مَلِيء (malīʾ) - full, filled
• مَمْلُوء (mamlūʾ) - filled (passive participle)
• امْتَلَأَ (imtalaʾa) - to become full, to be filled
• مِلْء (milʾ) - fullness, filling
• تَمْلِيء (tamlīʾ) - filling (verbal noun)
• مَلَأ (malaʾ) - assembly, ruling council, crowd, public

ἄνεμος / ר-ו-ח (resh-waw-ḥet) / ر-و-ح (rāʾ–wāw–ḥāʾ)

ἄνεμος (anemos, “wind,” 8:23) When the wind fully enters (מְלֹא / مِلْء) the sail, it takes shape, and the boat is propelled forward. Classical Arabic poetry often compares the full sail to a “breathing chest”—expanding, alive, and responsive to the unseen force of wind (رِيح rīḥ, which in Scripture functions as God’s breath or “Spirit.”) The biblical Hebrew term רוּחַ (ruaḥ) and the Arabic رُوح (rūḥ) both function as wind or divine Spirit.

The Greek verb πληρόω (plēroō), meaning “to fill,” “make full,” or “complete,” also corresponds to מ-ל-א and appears numerous times throughout Paul’s letters, notably: 

καὶ μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, ἐν ᾧ ἐστιν ἀσωτία, ἀλλὰ πληροῦσθε ἐν Πνεύματι,
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”
(Ephesians 5:18)

Paul deliberately chooses a second term in 1 Corinthians—not πληρόω, but κορέννυμι—to convey sharp sarcasm, mocking the leaders in Roman Corinth for being full of themselves and smug in their self-satisfaction. The only other appearance of this Pauline term, which does not occur in the Septuagint, is in Acts 27, which corresponds to Luke by way of authorship: 

“καὶ ἐμπλησθέντες τροφῆς ἐκούφισαν τὸ πλοῖον ἐκβαλλόμενοι τὸν σῖτον εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν.”
“And when they had eate