ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – THEY WILL REQUIRE – TAVLYN תבלינ

Luke 12:20, “But God said unto him, [Thou] fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

In the Aramaic the word tavlyn is used which literally means they will require. This comes from a Semitic root teva which means to seek satisfaction, to avenge. The question is, who are – they that will require this man’s soul? Who are these individuals who are seeking to avenge or seek satisfaction for this man’s soul?

In the ancient Middle East, no Hebrew owned property. Rather each year by a sort of lottery, land was portioned out. If you drew a stone that fell on good ground you stood a good chance of getting a good harvest with a surplus. If your lot fell on poor or rocky ground, your harvest would not be so plentiful and you and your family might starve. Even today we refer to a portion of property as a lot. We also speak of a person’s lot in life as a reference to some who have had an easy life and some who have hard times. Those with a poor lot could often depend upon a neighbor with a good lot to tide them over if their crops were poor. After all, next year the guy with the good lot could end up with a poor lot.

The man in this story obviously drew a good lot, but instead of offering his surplus to those who had the poor lot, he decided to horde it for himself in case he drew a poor lot the next year or there was a draught and even a good lot would come up lacking. The “they” in this story would be the people starving to death who would probably kill this rich guy for his food. The lesson is clear, it is best to live as a community than to lock yourself away and not share your good fortune.