Thursday, October 8, 2026
The government is readying the next phase of a war abroad on money borrowed at the steepest price in a generation, most of it bought by foreign hands, and this proverb names exactly what that arrangement makes of a nation.
A Christian should meet today's news by demanding that a war be counted before it is fought, by refusing to treat borrowed money as free money in the nation or in the home, and by pressing for the peace that is still being offered through quiet channels. Jesus put the arithmetic of war at the center of discipleship: "Who among you, wanting to raise a tower, will not sit down first and reckon up the outlay, to see whether he has the means to finish? Or what king, marching out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit and take counsel whether he can stand with ten thousand against the one coming at him with twenty thousand?" (Luke 14:28, 31). The Greek verb for reckoning is psay-FEE-zay (psēphizei, ψηφίζει), built on the word for a small pebble used both to tally sums and to cast votes — counting the cost is a deliberate act of judgment, stone by stone, before the first beam goes up. A war planned in the same day that the nation's own credit cleared only at a punishing price has skipped that sitting-down. Moses set the measure plainly: "You will lend to many nations and not borrow from them; you will rule over many nations, and they will not rule over you" (Deuteronomy 15:6). Lending and ruling travel together in that promise, so a people who must go to outsiders to pay for their battles have already handed part of the rule to someone else.
The proverb that opens this page explains why. Its word for the slave is eh-VED (ʿebed, עֶבֶד), the same word used for the bondman in Egypt, and the verb behind "lender," la-VAH (lāvâ, לָוָה), is spelled identically to the verb for being joined or attached — the loan binds the borrower to the one who holds the paper. Today's story shows who sits on each side of that bond: those who hold the debt collect a richer return, while renters, families heating their homes through winter, and the small lenders of ordinary towns carry the cost. Scripture judges that transfer directly: "One who crushes the poor to swell his own gain, and one who hands gifts to the rich — both arrive at want" (Proverbs 22:16). Against it the psalmist sets a different kind of person: "The wicked man borrows and never repays, but the righteous man deals graciously and keeps on giving" (Psalm 37:21). "Deals graciously" is kho-NANE (ḥônēn, חוֹנֵן), from the same root as ḥēn, grace itself — the righteous are marked by a surplus that flows outward, toward the neighbor whose heating bill just rose, rather than by a deficit that someone else must cover.
The record today holds both a refusal to bargain and a channel through intermediaries that has not closed, and the markets have priced only the refusal. The psalmist knew that position: "I am peace — yet whenever I speak, they are for battle" (Psalm 120:7). The Hebrew has no verb at all, a-NEE sha-LOME (ʾănî šālôm, אֲנִי שָׁלוֹם), literally "I — peace," a man whose whole identity is the thing others will not choose. Christ assigns that identity to His people as work, not mood: "How blessed are the ones who build peace: they will be given the name sons of God" (Matthew 5:9). The word is ay-ray-no-poy-OY (eirēnopoioi, εἰρηνοποιοί), peace-makers, from the verb for fashioning or producing something — so the faithful response is to pray for, argue for, and publicly honor the slow work of mediation while the war planners hold the headlines. At home the same apostle who taught submission to rulers gives the household rule: "Leave no debt standing to anyone, except the debt of loving one another" (Romans 13:8). Paul's Greek doubles the negative, may-de-NEE may-DEN o-FAY-leh-teh (mēdeni mēden opheilete, μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε), "to no one owe nothing," in a present imperative that means keep on owing nothing — pay down what binds you, and carry instead the one obligation that can never be discharged and was never meant to be.