The noun αρραβων (arrabon) describes a pledge or a collateral (2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5 and Ephesians 1:14 only). A pledge or a collateral is money paid or material invested before the corresponding goods or services are handed over in return. If the whole transaction entails a complicated socio-economic maneuver (it has to be obtained from very far), such a collateral initiates it and makes the rest of it possible. But if the so contracted supplier fails to complete the transfer, this collateral is lost to the winds and sands, forever untraceable and never to be recovered.

This word is relatively rare in the classics, but long distance trade was a risky and costly affair, but potentially very lucrative. The risks were commonly shared by both the party who put the order in and the one that went out to obtain it. On occasion, this word was used to describe a bribe.

Our noun αρραβων (arrabon) is a direct transliteration of the Hebrew word ערבן ('erabon), meaning the same. This Hebrew noun stems from one of four identical roots ערב ('arab), or rather a single one with a very broad meaning, namely that of criss-crossing, whether in the sense of living a nomadic lifestyle to being a long distance trader — indeed, like a needle-and-thread formed from a caravan that sews two separated regions together, hence the double meaning in Jesus' remarks on sowing old patches (established centers of production) on new wineskins (new markets), or camels slipping through eyes of needles: see our article on גמל (gamal), camel.

From this same root stems the noun ערב ('oreb), meaning raven, the proverbially black, itinerant and even messaging bird. It has been suggested that the noun αλαβα (alaba), meaning ink (unused in the New Testament), derives from this word ערב ('oreb), meaning raven, and even that the αλαβαστρον (alabastron), or flask made from alabaster, was originally (or named after) a container of ink. And whether or not this is formally and technically so, the Greek poets used these links liberally in their many puns.

From this same verb ערב ('arab), meaning to criss-cross (to be a nomad, to be a long distance trader, to sow centers of productions together into a single commercial garment) also comes the name Arabia and the ethnonym Arab. When Paul submits that the went first to Arabia and then to Damascus (Galatians 1:17), the pun implies that, like Elijah long before him (1 Kings 17:4), he rather emersed himself in the global trade of narrative, to see what stories people were telling and in what way. The Old Testament too appears to be a strongly compressed impression of all the stories told at the time, like a Wikipedia page on Human Reality; see for more on this our articles on Aeneas and Hellas; also see our article on How man's glorious imagination builds God's temple.

The Greek word for raven is κοραξ (korax), from the PIE root "(s)ker-", which means to cut off or harvest. From this same root comes the verb κειρω (keiro), to shear (to remove hair from sheep or human heads) and hence the noun κειρα (keira), which describes a piece of cloth woven from something sheared.

Our noun αρραβων (arrabon) describes a pledge or collateral and thus initiation of the kind of long-distance trade that sows production centers together into the single unified mantle of camel's hair that is the global commercial market, and upon whose routes the stories of the world collected into the massive foundational texts of the Bible (and Homer too, it appears). Note the accidental but pleasingly provocative similarity between our word αρραβων (arrabon), collateral, and αρραφος (arraphos), seamless or needle-less. This latter noun comes from the word ραπτω (rapto), to sew together, or the noun ραφις (raphis), needle. Note also that the earthly profession of Jesus and Joseph was that of τεκτων (tekton), meaning assembler (not "carpenter" as tradition has it), from the verb τικτω (tikto), to beget. These latter words ultimately stem from the same PIE root "tek-" from which English gets its words textile, technology and text.

All these correlations between trade, information technology, a person's physical needs and their mental essence, goods and narrative, reality and imagination, is obviously told in the gospels in the complex relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth (means Diaspora). Also see our article on the verb נהר (nahar), meaning both to flow (what water does) and to shine (what light does), for a look at the correlation between water (what John handled) and light (what Jesus, the Logos, handles). Also see our article on νεφελη (nephele), cloud.