Appendix C: The Words
The parables were taught one word at a time, and a handful of those words carry more than the English shows. They are gathered here in one alphabetical list, so a reader can find a term again without hunting the movement it came from. Transliteration only, the same as the body; no claim is made on the reader's pronunciation. Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic are marked.
anomia (Greek)
"lawlessness, Torah-less-ness"; the disease the parables diagnose and the harvest gathers out — "all workers of anomia" thrown out of the kingdom (Matthew 13:41), the same word as the "I never knew you, you workers of anomia" of Matthew 7:23. The thread runs from the Sermon on the Mount through the parables to the end of the age. · Movements Three, Fourteen
automatē (Greek)
"of its own accord, by itself"; the earth bears fruit automatē while the sower sleeps (Mark 4:28) — the kingdom grows by a power the farmer did not supply and cannot hurry. · Movement Four
ayin ra'ah / ayin tovah (Hebrew)
"the evil eye / the good eye"; a Hebrew idiom for a stingy, grudging heart versus a generous, open-handed one (Proverbs 28:22; 22:9) — not superstition. The landowner's diagnosis of the grumbler: "is your eye evil because I am generous?" (Matthew 20:15). · Movement Twelve
the cornerstone (the rejected stone)
Psalm 118:22 — "the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." The builders are the leadership who inspect and discard the heir; the rejection is not the plan's defeat but its means. · Movement Ten
covenant lawsuit
the prophetic form (Isaiah 5; Micah 6; Psalm 80) in which YHWH, the wronged covenant partner, files suit against His own planting for the fruit owed Him — often drawing the hearers to pronounce their own verdict. The shape of the Wicked Tenants. · Movement Ten
denarius / talent (Greek, of money)
a denarius is one day's wage; a talent is a weight of silver worth roughly fifteen to twenty years' wages. "Ten thousand talents" (Matthew 18:24) is a deliberately impossible sum — the unpayable debt of sin — set against the hundred denarii (Matthew 18:28) choked out of a fellow servant. · Movement Nine
goyim (Hebrew)
"the nations"; the gentile peoples outside Israel. In the Mustard Seed, the birds that nest in the branches — the nations finding shelter in the kingdom, grafted into the one tree, never replacing the root. · Movement Four
the kingdom of heaven (Hebrew, malkhut ha-shamayim)
the reign of YHWH breaking into the world; "heaven" is a reverent way of saying God's, not a faraway place. The subject of nearly every parable — "the kingdom of heaven is like…" is the King describing His own kingdom. · throughout
kosmos (Greek)
"the world"; the field in which the treasure is hidden and the wheat and tares grow together (Matthew 13:38) — the whole inhabited earth, not merely the religious community. · Movements Three, Five
Lazarus (Hebrew, Eleazar, "God has helped")
the only named character in any of Yeshua's parables (Luke 16:20) — the beggar the world forgot is the one God names, while the celebrated rich man stays nameless. · Movement Eight
mammon (Aramaic)
"wealth, money" treated as a power — the stuff itself set up as a rival master. Yeshua's flat verdict: "you cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). Not a balance to be struck but a master to be refused. · Movements Eight, Thirteen
mashal (Hebrew; plural meshalim)
a comparison, riddle, or likeness-story laid down to provoke and sort the hearer rather than to simplify — a trap for the heart that makes the listener pronounce a verdict and then turns it around (Nathan to David, 2 Samuel 12). Yeshua's parables are meshalim. · throughout (see Appendix A)
Memra (Aramaic)
"the Word"; the synagogue's term for the one God's own self-expression, by which the uncontainable Source makes Himself seen and reachable without becoming a second God. The man telling the parables is the Memra in flesh — the King describing His own kingdom. · Prologue and throughout
Moses and the Prophets
shorthand for the Hebrew Scriptures Israel already held; in the Rich Man and Lazarus, declared sufficient testimony — "if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead" (Luke 16:31). · Movement Eight
the mysteria (Greek, "the secrets")
the hidden things of the kingdom, "given" to the open-hearted and withheld from the hardened (Matthew 13:11) — the textual proof that a parable conceals as well as reveals. · Movement One
nomikos (Greek)
an expert in the Torah, a professional scholar of the Law; the "lawyer" who stands to test Yeshua and to ask, "who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:25). · Movement Six
Ruach (Hebrew)
"breath, wind, Spirit"; God's own presence at work in the world — not a distinct third person. The "good gift" the Father hands the asking child (Luke 11:13). · throughout
the Tanakh (Hebrew)
the Hebrew Scriptures — the Torah (Law), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings); the soil every parable grew from, and the "old" the kingdom scribe brings out of his treasure alongside the "new." · throughout
tokos (Greek)
"interest, usury"; the increase charged on a loan, which the Torah forbids between Israelites (Leviticus 25:36–37; Deuteronomy 23:19–20). The tell in the Talents: the hard master demands tokos (Matthew 25:27) — the Torah-breaking the faithful servant would not commit, marking the master as the system, not YHWH. · Movement Fourteen
the wedding garment
the festal robe required at the King's wedding feast (Matthew 22:11–12) — in that world provided by the host, yet which each guest must actually put on; a picture of a righteousness given freely but worn, not skipped. The hinge of "grace free, but not cheap." · Movement Eleven
YHWH (Hebrew)
the personal, covenant Name of the one God of Israel. · throughout
Yeshua (Hebrew)
"YHWH saves"; the Messiah, the Word made flesh — the King who tells the parables and the Son the tenants murder. · throughout
zizania (Greek)
the "weeds" sown among the wheat (Matthew 13:25) — almost certainly darnel, a grass that mimics wheat blade for blade until the grain-heads form; the picture of the counterfeit that passes for the real thing all through the growing season. · Movement Three