10.1 Feeling

Every one of the inner words feels, but not all in the same way.

The heart has the widest range: joy, grief, fear, courage, anxiety, love, contempt, despair.
The soul is above all bitter, longing, weary and troubled. "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?" (Psalm 42:5).
The spirit is troubled, crushed, faint, provoked, and hot or cool in temper. "My spirit faints within me" (Psalm 143:4). "He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding" (Proverbs 17:27).
The flesh trembles, faints and sings (Chapter 7).

A feeling is not a single moment. Scripture follows it as it rises, settles in the body, stays or passes, and turns into something else. Anger, fear and anxiety are the feelings I have followed through their verses so far. Anger is followed below through that course. Fear and anxiety have sections of their own, because their words have to be understood before their course makes sense. I expect other feelings to show their own course as I read them.

How a feeling rises

Very often, something is seen or heard first.

"The men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel" (Genesis 34:7). They had just heard of it.
"I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words" (Nehemiah 5:6).
"When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury" (Esther 3:5).
Paul's "spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols" (Acts 17:16).

What is perceived may not even be true. Potiphar heard his wife's story, "his anger was kindled", and Joseph went to prison (Genesis 39:19–20). The officials "were enraged at Jeremiah" over a charge he had just called "a lie" (Jeremiah 37:14–15). The feeling acts on what it believes it has seen.

Anger often rises where a will is blocked:

Balaam beats his donkey, and says why: "Because you have made a fool of me" (Numbers 22:29).
Naaman: "Naaman was angry and went away, saying, 'Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me'" (2 Kings 5:11).
Nebuchadnezzar is refused, and "the expression of his face was changed" (Daniel 3:19).

It rises where a heart that was lifted up is checked. Uzziah "when he was strong, he grew proud" (2 Chronicles 26:16). When the priests withstood him, "Uzziah was angry" (26:19). The king's anger burned when "the heart of the king was merry with wine" and his queen refused him (Esther 1:10–12). Chapter 11 follows this threshold further.

And anger rises on behalf of someone else. Jonathan "rose from the table in fierce anger … for he was grieved for David" (1 Samuel 20:34). When Jesus saw the children turned away, "he was indignant" (Mark 10:14).

Where it goes in the body

A feeling that cannot reach its cause sinks into the body. "Cain was very angry, and his face fell" (Genesis 4:5). Ahab went home "vexed and sullen … lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food" (1 Kings 21:4).

Vexation that goes on and on reaches the eyes. "My eye has grown dim from vexation" (Job 17:7). "My eye wastes away because of grief" (Psalm 6:7). It keeps a person awake: "Even in the night his heart does not rest" (Ecclesiastes 2:23). Held-in anger presses from within. Elihu says, "my belly is like wine that has no vent … I must speak, that I may find relief" (Job 32:19–20).

The body also shows when a feeling is resolved. Hannah, provoked "year by year", wept and would not eat (1 Samuel 1:7). After she had poured out her soul and been blessed, she "went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad" (1:18).

How long it stays

Feelings have a course in time, and Scripture watches it.

It can pass. Rebekah sends Jacob away "until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him" (Genesis 27:45). Years later, "Esau ran to meet him and embraced him" (33:4).
It can be kept forever. Of Edom, Esau's nation: "his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever" (Amos 1:11).
It can lodge and be cherished. "Anger lodges in the heart of fools" (Ecclesiastes 7:9). "The godless in heart cherish anger" (Job 36:13).
It can be fed by a plan. Rebekah is told that "your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you" (Genesis 27:42). The anger is soothed, and kept alive, by imagining what it will do.
It repeats. "A man of great wrath will pay the penalty, for if you deliver him, you will only have to do it again" (Proverbs 19:19).
It is given a limit. "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4:26–27). A day, not a lifetime.

Remembering and forgetting are bound up with this course. Section 10.3 follows them.

Where it turns

A feeling can turn back on the one who has it. "You who tear yourself in your anger" (Job 18:4). Joseph forbids it: "do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here" (Genesis 45:5). Jonah, angry at God's mercy, asks to die: "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die" (Jonah 4:9).

A feeling can even kill the one who has it. "Surely vexation kills the fool, and jealousy slays the simple" (Job 5:2). Chapter 2 sets this beside the other ways that end in death.

It can heat a person inside. "Fret not yourself" in Psalm 37 is literally do not heat yourself: "Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil" (Psalm 37:8). The psalm puts other movements in place of the heat: "Trust in the Lord … Commit your way to the Lord … Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him" (37:3, 5, 7).

Anger can pass into another feeling. David was angry when God struck Uzzah, and then "David was afraid of the Lord that day" (2 Samuel 6:8–9). And it can be held together with grief. Jesus "looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart" (Mark 3:5). His anger and his grief have the same object, and the next thing he does is heal.

Grief at a death takes more than one form:

David fasted while his child lived, and rose when he died: "But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?" (2 Samuel 12:23).
Later, "the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom, because he was comforted about Amnon, since he was dead" (2 Samuel 13:39).
Jeremiah turns the weeping elsewhere: "Weep not for him who is dead, nor grieve for him, but weep bitterly for him who goes away" (Jeremiah 22:10).
Mary, at Jesus' feet: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:32).

A groan can be a waiting. "We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling" (2 Corinthians 5:2). Chapter 2 ("The body raised") gives what is waited for.

Fear

Scripture never stops to define fear. It shows it, and it shows it in the whole person. Saul "was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly" (1 Samuel 28:5). The psalmist says, "My flesh trembles for fear of you" (Psalm 119:120). Eliphaz says, "dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake" (Job 4:14). In these verses fear is not an opinion about danger. It is something that happens in the heart and the body together. It shows on the face: when the king asked Nehemiah why his face was sad, "Then I was very much afraid" (Nehemiah 2:2). Chapter 7 follows it into the flesh and the bones.

The verbs show something more. In these verses fear is not something the person does. It comes upon him. "Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me" (Psalm 55:5). "Trembling took hold of them there" (Psalm 48:6). The person is the one acted on.

Fear has a cause outside and often a reason inside. The first fear in the Bible names both: "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself" (Genesis 3:10). Adam heard a sound outside him, and the reason was something he knew about himself. Moses "was afraid, and thought, 'Surely the thing is known'" (Exodus 2:14). Here too, the fear rises when what is hidden inside meets what is coming from outside.

Often the cause is simply outside: what is seen and heard. "When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid" (1 Samuel 17:11). It rises at an arrival: the elders "came to meet him trembling and said, 'Do you come peaceably?'" (1 Samuel 16:4). It rises at a discovery: "Isaac trembled very violently" (Genesis 27:33). It rises in the night, before something not clearly seen: "A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up" (Job 4:15). It can have two causes at once: the people sat "trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain" (Ezra 10:9).

The words

The English word "fear" covers several Hebrew words, and they do not all mean the same thing.

Yārēʾ, "to fear". This is the ordinary word. It is used for fear of an enemy and for fear of God, and turned round it describes the one who is feared: God is "awesome", the wilderness "terrifying" (Deuteronomy 10:17; 8:15).
Paḥad, "to dread". This is the dread that falls on a person. Yet once the same word is used of joy: "your heart shall thrill and exult" (Isaiah 60:5).
Ḥārad, "to tremble". This is the body's trembling. Yet Eli "was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God" (1 Samuel 4:13). That is trembling for something he loved, not before a threat.
Rāgaz, "to tremble, be stirred". The earth quakes with it. A person is stirred with it to anger, "Be angry, and do not sin" (Psalm 4:4), and to grief: David "was deeply moved" and wept for Absalom (2 Samuel 18:33).

I read these words as naming a stirring of the inner being, a shaking. The verse and its situation decide whether that shaking is fear, anger, grief, care or joy. That is why the same root can be rendered so many ways.

What fear does

Fear does not stay inside. It moves the person, and the verses follow where it moves them.

It drives away. Adam hid. Uriah "was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt" (Jeremiah 26:21). At Sinai "the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off" (Exodus 20:18).
It holds back the hand. "The young man did not draw his sword, for he was afraid" (Judges 8:20). Section 10.7 follows this.
It silences. "Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli" (1 Samuel 3:15). Section 10.5 follows this.
It bends speech into a lie. Sarah said "I did not laugh," "for she was afraid" (Genesis 18:15).
It takes the wrong voice. "I feared the people and obeyed their voice" (1 Samuel 15:24). Section 10.8 follows this.
It hardens. It began because "the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul" (1 Samuel 18:12). It ended: "Saul was even more afraid of David. So Saul was David's enemy continually" (18:29).
It spreads. The fearful man is sent home "lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own" (Deuteronomy 20:8).
It stays, and what it fears can follow. "The sword that you fear shall overtake you there" (Jeremiah 42:16). "For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me" (Job 3:25). Under the curse it fills every hour: "In the morning you shall say, 'If only it were evening!' and at evening you shall say, 'If only it were morning!'" (Deuteronomy 28:67).

One question from God holds several of these together: "Whom did you dread and fear, so that you lied, and did not remember me, did not lay it to heart? … and you do not fear me?" (Isaiah 57:11). The verse sets two fears against each other. They dreaded someone else, and they did not fear God. The lie and the forgetting stand between the two. Proverbs puts the same thing in one line: "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe" (Proverbs 29:25).

The fear of God

The same word, yārēʾ, is used of fearing God, and here it does the opposite of what the fear of a threat does.

Exodus 20 shows both on one day. The people saw the thunder and the smoking mountain, "were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off", and asked that God not speak to them, "lest we die" (Exodus 20:18–19). Moses answered: "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin" (20:20). In one sentence he takes one fear away and sets another in its place. I read the first as the fear that drives a person away from God, and the second as a fear that keeps a person from sin. The next verse says simply: "The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was" (20:21).

This second fear is not a passing fright. It belongs to the heart.

God longs for it: "Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me" (Deuteronomy 5:29).
God promises to give it: "I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me" (Jeremiah 32:40).
It can also be present only on the lips: "their fear of me is a commandment taught by men", while "their hearts are far from me" (Isaiah 29:13).

The fear of a threat makes a person run. This fear, in God's own words, keeps a person from turning away. And what it brings is the reverse of what terror brings.

confidence: "In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge" (Proverbs 14:26)
life: "a fountain of life" (14:27)
understanding: "the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7)
a turning from evil: "The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil" (Proverbs 8:13)

It sits with joy: "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling" (Psalm 2:11). And it trembles, but at God's word, not at a threat: "this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isaiah 66:2).

What changes it

What makes fear one thing or the other? The verses point to a few things.

What it is turned toward. At the sea Israel "feared greatly" as Egypt marched (Exodus 14:10). After the crossing, "the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord" (14:31). It is the same people and the same word, with a different object, and the change came after God had acted. The sailors with Jonah went the same way: afraid in the storm, then, when the sea was calm, "the men feared the Lord exceedingly" (Jonah 1:5, 16).
A deliberate turning. Isaiah is told to move his fear: "do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread" (Isaiah 8:12–13). The fear is not removed. It is given a different object.
Whether the heart is in it. That is the difference between fear "taught by men" and fear put "in their hearts" (Isaiah 29:13; Jeremiah 32:40). A hardened heart does not fear God at all: "why do you … harden our heart, so that we fear you not?" (Isaiah 63:17).
Who speaks to it, and why. Words of comfort can be a lie. Jael says "do not be afraid" to Sisera before the tent peg (Judges 4:18). When God says it, he gives a reason, and the reason is mostly himself: "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield" (Genesis 15:1); "fear not, for I am with you" (Isaiah 41:10).

Meeting fear

In the verses, fear of a threat is not argued away. It is met by someone. God's "fear not" comes with "I am with you" (Isaiah 41:10), "I am your shield" (Genesis 15:1), "I have redeemed you" (Isaiah 43:1). And a person can meet it the same way from his own side: "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Psalm 56:3), and a verse later, "in God I trust; I shall not be afraid" (56:4). The fear is named, and then turned toward God. Of the one who is steady, the psalm says: "He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord" (Psalm 112:7).

The verses that come closest to saying what fear itself is are in the New Testament: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). I have not yet read the Greek words for fear, and this account will need to be read again when I have.

The fear of death itself is named as a bondage. Christ shared flesh and blood "that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery" (Hebrews 2:14–15). And the list of those whose portion is "the second death" opens with "the cowardly" (Revelation 21:8). Chapter 2 ("Facing death") follows the fear of dying.

The fear of God as a way of life, and God's "fear not", are followed further in 10.9. Fear between people is in 10.10, and dread under God's anger in Chapter 13.

Anxiety

Anxiety, as the verses show it, is a mind and heart taken up with something not yet made safe: food and clothing, tomorrow, what to say before a court, other people, one's own sin. Proverbs gives it weight: "Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad" (Proverbs 12:25). Jesus names what it is usually about: "do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on" (Matthew 6:25). Here "life" is the life that needs feeding, and Luke's version gives the reason not to be anxious: "For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing" (Luke 12:23).

The words

The Bible's words for anxiety do not all mean the same thing either.

Merimnaō, "to be anxious, to care". This is the Greek word for anxiety about food and clothing (Matthew 6:25–34). It is also the word for Paul's "daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" (2 Corinthians 11:28), for Timothy, who "will be genuinely concerned for your welfare" (Philippians 2:20), and for the members of the body who "have the same care for one another" (1 Corinthians 12:25). The word is not bad in itself. What it is about decides what it is.
Meteōrizō, "to be held in suspense". Luke uses it once, in the same teaching: "do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried" (Luke 12:29).
Dāʾag, "to be anxious, to dread", and deʾāgāh, "anxiety". The Hebrew word looks ahead to a harm that may come. The tribes east of the Jordan built their altar "from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, 'What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?'" (Joshua 22:24). Zedekiah would not surrender: "I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans" (Jeremiah 38:19). And the "dread" of Isaiah 57:11, which led to a lie and to forgetting God (in the fear section above), is this word. Yet the psalmist turns the same word on his own sin: "I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin" (Psalm 38:18).
Śarʿappîm, "anxious thoughts". "When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul" (Psalm 94:19). "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!" (Psalm 139:23).

So the anxious Greek word can be love's care for others, and the anxious Hebrew word can be sorrow for sin. What changes it is what it is turned toward.

What anxiety does

In the verses, anxiety gains nothing for the thing it is about, and it does several things to the person.

It adds nothing. "Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" (Matthew 6:27).
It runs ahead. "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (6:34).
It weighs the heart down. "Watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap" (Luke 21:34).
It chokes what has been received. In the parable of the sower, "the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful" (Matthew 13:22). Against it Luke sets those who "hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience" (Luke 8:15).
It divides. "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary" (Luke 10:41–42). Paul says the married man is anxious about pleasing his wife, "and his interests are divided" (1 Corinthians 7:34). What Paul wants is "undivided devotion to the Lord" (7:35).
What it fears can follow. "The famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt" (Jeremiah 42:16). The people had gone to Egypt to get away from it.

Ezekiel was made to eat and drink "with anxiety" as a sign of the siege to come (Ezekiel 12:18–19). That is in Chapter 13.

Care that is good

Not every anxiety is rebuked. Paul says, "I want you to be free from anxieties" (1 Corinthians 7:32), and in the same verse, "The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord." Of his care for the churches he gives the meaning himself: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?" (2 Corinthians 11:29). That care is to be weak with the weak. He praises Timothy for the same care, against those who "all seek their own interests" (Philippians 2:20–21). A father's care is shown with no word of rebuke: Saul's father "has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, 'What shall I do about my son?'" (1 Samuel 10:2).

The difference, as these verses give it, lies in two things:

What the care is for: my own provision, or another's welfare and the things of the Lord.
Whether it divides me: Martha's "many things" against "one thing" (Luke 10:41–42), and divided interests against "undivided devotion" (1 Corinthians 7:34–35).

Meeting anxiety

Where the verses tell a person not to be anxious, they never leave it there. Something is put in anxiety's place, and often it is someone.

It is handed to God. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6–7). "Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). The anxiety goes to God, and peace comes back to guard the heart and mind.
It is answered by a word. "A good word makes him glad" (Proverbs 12:25). "Your consolations cheer my soul" (Psalm 94:19). The Hebrew of that psalm says the cares are within me, and names the soul only where the comfort lands.
It is answered by looking. "Look at the birds of the air … your heavenly Father feeds them" (Matthew 6:26). "Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" (6:32–33).
It is answered by the Spirit. To disciples brought before courts: "do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Matthew 10:19–20). Luke says, "the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say" (Luke 12:12).
It is searched. "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!" (Psalm 139:23). Here the psalmist does not hand over the anxious thoughts. He asks God to look at them.

Jeremiah draws the one who is not anxious. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water … and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7–8). The drought still comes. The tree goes on bearing fruit through it.

Losing heart

Two words name losing heart: the Hebrew kāʾāh, "to be disheartened", and the Greek athumeō, "to lose heart", literally to be without thumos, "passion, spirit". Between them they are used five times, and in every one someone or something else does it to the person.

A father. "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21).
False prophets. "You have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him" (Ezekiel 13:22). God says plainly that the grief did not come from him. It came from a lie.
The oppressor. "The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might" (Psalm 10:10). The one who presses them down, in the next verse, "says in his heart, 'God has forgotten'" (10:11).
The persecutor. He "pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted, to put them to death" (Psalm 109:16).
A defeat. Of a king turned back by the ships of Kittim: "he shall be afraid and withdraw, and shall turn back and be enraged and take action against the holy covenant" (Daniel 11:30). Here losing heart turns into rage. Two verses earlier, "his heart shall be set against the holy covenant" (11:28). His rage goes against what his heart was already set against.

When feeling changes character

The same feeling is not always the same thing.

Anger can heal, as Jesus's does (Mark 3:5). It can stop its ears and stone a man (Acts 7:57–58). It can be "a rage that has reached up to heaven" (2 Chronicles 28:9). "Be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26) tells me anger itself is not forbidden. What it does, and how long it stays, is the question.
Indignation is the disciples' complaint at a woman's gift: "Why this waste?" (Matthew 26:8). It is also one of the fruits of a grief that turns to God: "what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal" (2 Corinthians 7:11).
Vexation, ka'as, is what a person does to another ("her rival used to provoke her grievously", 1 Samuel 1:6), what a person bears ("I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation", 1:16), and even something that does good: "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad" (Ecclesiastes 7:3).
Fear is forbidden and commanded, sometimes in one sentence (Exodus 20:20). The word for the fear that makes people run is the word for the fear that keeps them from turning away. The section on fear above sets out what changes it.
Anxiety is rebuked when it is for my own food and clothing (Matthew 6:25), and praised when it is for the welfare of others (Philippians 2:20). It is the same Greek word. The Hebrew word for anxious dread is also the word for being sorry for sin (Psalm 38:18). The section on anxiety above sets out the difference.
Provoking is what love does not do. It "is not irritable" (1 Corinthians 13:5). Yet believers are told, "let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24), with the same Greek word.

What makes the difference, as far as the verses show:

What, or whom, it faces. Fear of the army and of the sea is followed, after God has acted, by fear of the Lord (Exodus 14:10, 31; the section on fear above).
What the feeling is for. Is it on behalf of someone wronged, or for my own will?
What it is joined with. Grief makes it tender; jealousy makes it hard: "jealousy makes a man furious … He will accept no compensation" (Proverbs 6:34–35).
How long it stays.
Whether it is seen truly.
The answer it meets. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1).
Whether it is brought before God. "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). "Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent" (Psalm 4:4).

Chapter 11 (§4) sets these beside what the other activities show.

Feeling and thinking

Feeling and thinking run into each other. "When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul" (Psalm 94:19). A thought can bring a feeling that reaches the body: Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall, and "his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together" (Daniel 5:6). A remembered fear goes on being turned over: "Your heart will muse on the terror" (Isaiah 33:18). A mind that will not settle stalls the whole person: "How long will you go limping between two different opinions?" (1 Kings 18:21). And the Hebrew word for meditating also means to moan: "I moan like a dove" (Isaiah 38:14).

Feeling also drives thinking. Saul's anger at a song becomes a calculation: "what more can he have but the kingdom?" (1 Samuel 18:8). Section 10.4 follows that.

Feelings pass between the inner being and the body in both directions. "A glad heart makes a cheerful face" (Proverbs 15:13). "A joyful heart is good medicine" (Proverbs 17:22). Going the other way: "wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart" (Psalm 104:15). "Oil and perfume make the heart glad" (Proverbs 27:9).

God feels

God feels in heart and soul too. "The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:6). "I will rejoice in doing them good … with all my heart and all my soul" (Jeremiah 32:41). God's anger is also in Scripture, and how the human being meets it is the subject of Chapter 13.

Connections:

with speaking (10.5) and choosing (10.7): fear holds back the mouth and the hand
with right and wrong (10.8): fear that leads into wrong
with thinking (10.4) and speaking (10.5): anger reckons, and held anger is released in words
with remembering and forgetting (10.3): how long a feeling stays
with the body (Chapter 7)
with knowing (10.2): perplexity, the mind that cannot yet interpret what it sees, keeps company with fear and gladness (Mark 6:20)
with others (10.10): care for others is a good anxiety; losing heart is done to a person by another; feelings spread (Deuteronomy 20:8), strife is anger between people, and fear is spoken to by others
with God (10.9, Chapter 13): anger at God, fear before God and the fear of God, and life under God's anger