Learning4Comfort

The Inner Being

4. The heart

If I had to name the one word Scripture leans on most for the inside of a person, it would be the heart: lēv and lēvāv in Hebrew, kardia in Greek.

The middle of things

The Hebrew word for heart is also the ordinary word for the middle of something. Ships sink "in the heart of the seas" (Ezekiel 27:26). The mountain burned "to the heart of heaven" (Deuteronomy 4:11). The Son of Man will be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40).

It is also the physical heart in the chest. An arrow can go through it (2 Kings 9:24). And when Aaron goes before the Lord, he wears the names of the tribes "on his heart" on the breastpiece (Exodus 28:29–30). The physical place and the inner centre are one word.

The heart speaks to itself

The heart is the place where a person talks without a voice. Scripture says, over and over, that someone "said in his heart":

  • Abraham laughed and "said to himself" (Genesis 17:17).
  • Esau planned murder in his heart (Genesis 27:41).
  • The fool "says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1).
  • "Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth'" (Deuteronomy 8:17).
  • Babylon is told that she says "in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me'" (Isaiah 47:8).

Many of these sentences are verdicts. When I gathered them together, they fell into a few kinds.

  • About God. "There is no God" (Psalm 14:1). "God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it" (Psalm 10:11). "The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill" (Zephaniah 1:12).
  • About myself. "I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity" (Psalm 10:6). "I will ascend to heaven" (Isaiah 14:13). "Who will bring me down to the ground?" (Obadiah 3).
  • Taking the credit. "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:17). "It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land" (Deuteronomy 9:4).
  • Fear. "These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?" (Deuteronomy 7:17). "Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul" (1 Samuel 27:1).
  • Enquiry. The Preacher uses his inner speech to test life: "I said in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.' But behold, this also was vanity" (Ecclesiastes 2:1).

And what the heart fails to say can be as telling as what it says: "They do not say in their hearts, 'Let us fear the Lord our God, who gives the rain in its season'" (Jeremiah 5:24).

Scripture does not leave these sentences alone. It forbids some ("Do not say in your heart", Deuteronomy 9:4) and answers others, and the sentences lead to deeds. Chapter 10 follows that path. Even God is said to speak in his heart (Genesis 8:21; Chapter 11).

The same inner speech can be turned toward God. Hannah "was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard" (1 Samuel 1:13). Abraham's servant says, "Before I had finished speaking in my heart, behold, Rebekah came out" (Genesis 24:45). The prayer was complete, and answered, before a word was spoken aloud. The opposite is true as well: "They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds" (Hosea 7:14).

The heart thinks, attends and remembers

Much of what we would call the mind, Scripture calls the heart. Here I am concerned with the heart as the place of thinking. What thinking itself does (arising, weighing, devising, meditating) I take up in Chapter 10.4.

  • It plans. "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). "Many are the plans in the mind [heart] of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand" (Proverbs 19:21).
  • It understands. Solomon asks for "an understanding mind" (1 Kings 3:9). The Hebrew is a hearing heart. The prophets speak of people who will not "understand with their hearts" (Isaiah 6:10; Matthew 13:15).
  • It pays attention. To pay attention is literally to set the heart. Haggai's "Consider your ways" (Haggai 1:5) is literally set your heart on your ways. The Preacher "applied my heart to seek and to search out" (Ecclesiastes 1:13). The failure is its opposite: "it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart" (Isaiah 42:25).
  • It remembers and holds. "I have stored up your word in my heart" (Psalm 119:11). Mary "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Mary's second treasuring comes straight after a saying she "did not understand" (2:50–51). Earlier, at the angel's greeting, she "was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be" (Luke 1:29). Daniel, alarmed by his vision, "kept the matter in my heart" (Daniel 7:28).

The heart decides and is moved

  • "Daniel resolved [set on his heart] that he would not defile himself with the king's food" (Daniel 1:8).
  • "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart" (2 Corinthians 9:7).
  • David had it "in my heart to build a house" (1 Chronicles 28:2).
  • When the tabernacle was built, "everyone whose heart stirred him" brought an offering (Exodus 35:21).
  • The heart's purposes run deep: "The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out" (Proverbs 20:5).

The heart feels

The heart carries the widest range of feeling of any of the inner words. It rejoices (Psalm 16:9), grieves (Nehemiah 2:2), melts in fear (Joshua 7:5), trembles ("he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly", 1 Samuel 28:5), stands firm against fear ("though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear", Psalm 27:3), takes courage ("be strong, and let your heart take courage", Psalm 27:14), desires ("the desires of your heart", Psalm 37:4), loves ("the king's heart went out to Absalom", 2 Samuel 14:1) and despises ("she despised him in her heart", 2 Samuel 6:16). Grief is felt there like physical pain: "My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly" (Jeremiah 4:19). It trembles for something: Eli "was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God" (1 Samuel 4:13). In the curse, a trembling heart is given: "the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul" (Deuteronomy 28:65). And a word for dread is used of the heart's joy: "your heart shall thrill and exult" (Isaiah 60:5).

Scripture reaches for materials to describe what state a heart is in. It can be stone (Ezekiel 36:26), or so hard it is "diamond-hard" (Zechariah 7:12). It can be "like wax … melted within my breast" (Psalm 22:14), or "unfeeling like fat" (Psalm 119:70). It can be like an oven (Hosea 7:6), or "struck down like grass and has withered" (Psalm 102:4). It is "a stream of water in the hand of the Lord" (Proverbs 21:1). And it is a mirror: "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man" (Proverbs 27:19).

The heart is the source

Jesus is direct about this: "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery …" (Matthew 15:19). Proverbs says the same in its own way: "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23). In the verses around it, the guarding moves outward from the heart to the mouth, then the eyes, then the feet (4:20–27).

Chapter 2 starts from that verse. The state of the heart reaches the body: "A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot" (Proverbs 14:30). And the heart itself can be revived. God dwells with the lowly "to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15). "You who seek God, let your hearts revive" (Psalm 69:32). To those who seek him the psalmist says, "May your hearts live forever!" (Psalm 22:26).

Mouth and heart can be in step: "if you confess with your mouth … and believe in your heart" (Romans 10:9). Or they can be out of step: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me" (Matthew 15:8, quoting Isaiah 29:13). "His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart" (Psalm 55:21). Isaiah's words go on to the fear of God itself: "their fear of me is a commandment taught by men" (Isaiah 29:13).

The heart holds what is put into it

The heart is the place into which things are put. God writes on it: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33). His Spirit is given into it (Galatians 4:6), and his love is poured into it (Romans 5:5). Wisdom comes into it (Proverbs 2:10). God "has put eternity into man's heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God puts his fear there: "I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me" (Jeremiah 32:40). David prays for it: "unite my heart to fear your name" (Psalm 86:11). But people also take "idols into their hearts" (Ezekiel 14:3), and Satan filled Ananias's heart (Acts 5:3). It is soil in which the word is sown (Luke 8:15), and a treasury: "the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good" (Luke 6:45). "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21).

The heart has its own sight

A few verses give the heart its own senses. "The eyes of your hearts enlightened" (Ephesians 1:18). God "has shone in our hearts" (2 Corinthians 4:6). "A veil lies over their hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:15). And the lover in the Song says, "I slept, but my heart was awake" (Song 5:2).

The heart judges itself

In the Old Testament, the heart judges. "David's heart struck him" (1 Samuel 24:5). "My heart does not reproach me" (Job 27:6). "Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others" (Ecclesiastes 7:22). The New Testament keeps this: "whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart" (1 John 3:20).

The heart is hidden, and God sees it

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). "The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy" (Proverbs 14:10). Other people cannot fully see into it, and often its owner cannot either. But "man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). God is the one who "knows the secrets of the heart" (Psalm 44:21). "You discern my thoughts from afar" (Psalm 139:2). He knows the heart's leaning before it acts: "I know what they are inclined to do even today" (Deuteronomy 31:21). He tests it and weighs it: "the Lord weighs the heart" (Proverbs 21:2). People try to hide what the heart holds, and Isaiah answers them: "Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel … and who say, 'Who sees us? Who knows us?' You turn things upside down!" (Isaiah 29:15–16). Section 10.11 follows hiding and disclosing.

Is the heart the centre of it all?

It is sometimes said that the heart is where soul and spirit meet. No verse says that. What the verses do show is that the heart is the middle of the person, as it is the middle of the sea. It is the place where a person thinks, speaks inwardly, decides, feels, remembers, keeps and judges. It is the place into which God, other people and other powers put things. And it is the part God examines. Whether that makes the heart the integrating centre of the inner being, I leave open.