10.10 Relating to others

The inner being is not private. It reaches out, is reached, and is bound to other people.

Love lives in the soul. "The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:1). The lover in the Song seeks "him whom my soul loves" (Song 3:1).
Hatred starts in the heart. "You shall not hate your brother in your heart" (Leviticus 19:17). The law names the heart as the place of hatred. Esau's hatred began as heart-speech: "Esau said to himself, 'The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob'" (Genesis 27:41). The next verse says Rebekah was told.
The spirit registers the presence and absence of friends. "My spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there" (2 Corinthians 2:13). Later, "his spirit has been refreshed by you all" (2 Corinthians 7:13). Friends "refreshed my spirit as well as yours" (1 Corinthians 16:18).
The spirit is the manner of approach. "Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?" (1 Corinthians 4:21).
Inner states spread. The fainthearted soldier is sent home before battle "lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own" (Deuteronomy 20:8). "Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home" (Judges 7:3).
Joy at another's fall is watched. "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles" (Proverbs 24:17).

Thinking happens together. The disciples "had argued with one another about who was the greatest" (Mark 9:34). Shared reasoning can become a shared deed: "they said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Let us kill him'" (Luke 20:14).
Reasoning together can become a quarrel. The disciples' reasoning about greatness became "an argument … as to which of them was the greatest" (Luke 9:46). Paul tells the church to welcome the one who is weak in faith, "but not to quarrel over opinions" (Romans 14:1), and to "do all things without grumbling or disputing" (Philippians 2:14).
Thinking can make distinctions it should not. When the rich man is given the good seat and the poor man told to stand: "have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" (James 2:4).
The heart can be absent from the words. "'Eat and drink!' he says to you, but his heart is not with you" (Proverbs 23:7).
Love does not keep the count. Love "is not irritable or resentful" (1 Corinthians 13:5). The Greek word behind "resentful" is the reckoning word: love does not reckon up wrong. It is the same word used of God, who in Christ was "not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). Paul, deserted at his trial, prays: "May it not be charged against them!" (2 Timothy 4:16). The one who has done wrong asks for the same thing: "Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong" (2 Samuel 19:19). And where there is trust, the count is not even asked for: "they did not ask for an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money … for they dealt honestly" (2 Kings 12:15).

One person can hold another's life. Ben-hadad's servants hoped in a king's mercy: "we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings … Perhaps he will spare your life" (1 Kings 20:31). Israel's leaders kept others alive by their word: "let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them" (Joshua 9:20). Life is also asked of God for another (Chapter 2).

Some hold to another even to death:

Ruth to Naomi: "Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you" (Ruth 1:17).
Ittai to David: "wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be" (2 Samuel 15:21).
Peter: "Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!" (Matthew 26:35).
Paul, to friends who wept: "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 21:13).

Paul says how seldom it is done for another: "For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die" (Romans 5:7). He sets Christ's death under how a brother is treated: "By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died" (Romans 14:15).

A person can be answerable for another's death, or turn another back from it. God tells Ezekiel, "If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning … that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (Ezekiel 3:18). "Whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death" (James 5:20). John makes love the sign of life itself: "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death" (1 John 3:14). And kindness reaches even the dead: "May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!" (Ruth 2:20).

How a person rates himself, or another, can be put in the words "a dead dog". Mephibosheth to David: "What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?" (2 Samuel 9:8). Abishai, of Shimei: "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?" (2 Samuel 16:9).

Care, discouragement and hiding between people

What one person carries inside can be for another, or done to another.

Care for another is a good anxiety. Paul's "daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches" is to be weak with the weak (2 Corinthians 11:28–29). Members of one body are to "have the same care for one another" (1 Corinthians 12:25). Section 10.1 sets out the difference between this care and anxiety for oneself.
Losing heart is done by another. "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21). Every use of the words for losing heart has another party behind it (10.1).
A whisperer separates friends. "A whisperer separates close friends" (Proverbs 16:28), and "where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases" (26:20) (10.5).
People hide from people, and hide one another. The weaker side hides: "When the wicked rise, people hide themselves" (Proverbs 28:28). Rahab and Obadiah hid others to keep them alive (Joshua 2:4; 1 Kings 18:4). And no one can hide from a friend who turns: "it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal" (Psalm 55:12–13). Section 10.11 follows all of this.

Fear between people

Fear runs between people in several directions. The fear of God stands behind how one person treats another. People speak to one another's fear. And fear is put into others, sometimes on purpose.

The fear of God and the weak

In the law, the fear of God is often the "but" that follows a wrong:

"You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God" (Leviticus 19:14).
"You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God" (Leviticus 25:43).

The deaf man cannot hear the curse, the blind man cannot see the block, and the servant cannot answer back. I read the "but you shall fear your God" as saying that God sees what the victim cannot. The fear of God is named where no one else would stop the wrong.

The verses show it working that way.

"The midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live" (Exodus 1:17). Their fear of God outweighed a king.
Joseph, holding his brothers' lives: "Do this and you will live, for I fear God" (Genesis 42:18).
Nehemiah would not burden the people as earlier governors had: "But I did not do so, because of the fear of God" (Nehemiah 5:15).

They also show its absence where the weak are harmed. Abraham expected to be killed: "There is no fear of God at all in this place" (Genesis 20:11). Amalek attacked "when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God" (Deuteronomy 25:18). The ones struck were the ones lagging behind.

Reverence for people

The same word is used of reverence for people. "Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father" (Leviticus 19:3). Twice the verses say why a leader was held in awe, and both times the reason is God's work in him. "The Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses" (Joshua 4:14). Israel "stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice" (1 Kings 3:28).

Speaking to another's fear

People speak to one another's fear as God does, with a reason. The midwife says to Rachel, "Do not fear, for you have another son" (Genesis 35:17). David says to Mephibosheth, the grandson of the king he replaced, "Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan" (2 Samuel 9:7). Elisha says to his servant, "Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6:16).

Joseph's reason goes further. His brothers feared revenge, and he answered, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? … So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones" (Genesis 50:19, 21). He would not take the place of God, which is the place from which judgment would come. The same words can be spoken in bad faith (10.5).

Fear that arrives with a person

A person's coming can bring fear, because of what it might mean. When Samuel came to Bethlehem, "the elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, 'Do you come peaceably?'" (1 Samuel 16:4). Ahimelech "came to meet David, trembling", and asked, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" (1 Samuel 21:1). The question each asks shows what they feared.

Some people carry fear with them because of their power. Of Nebuchadnezzar: "because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed" (Daniel 5:19). The fear followed the power over life and death, and the verse says that power was given by God. Fear can fall on a crowd because of one person: officials "helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them" (Esther 9:3).

And refusing to be afraid can provoke. When Haman saw Mordecai, "that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai" (Esther 5:9). The man who would not tremble became the one Haman set out to destroy (5:14).

Making others afraid

Fear is also made. Ahithophel planned to strike David "while he is weary and discouraged and throw him into a panic, and all the people who are with him will flee" (2 Samuel 17:2). The panic was the weapon: frightened people scatter. Words are used the same way (10.5). Psalm 10 names this among the things God will end: he does justice "so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more" (Psalm 10:18).

The sufferer can become someone others fear: "an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me" (Psalm 31:11). Here the fear isolates the one who is already in trouble.

Trembling for another

The trembling words are also used of fear for someone. Eli "was sitting on his seat by the road watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God" (1 Samuel 4:13). Elisha says to the Shunammite, with the same root, "See, you have taken all this trouble for us" (2 Kings 4:13). Her care for them is a kind of trembling. When Esther heard of Mordecai in sackcloth, "the queen was deeply distressed" (Esther 4:4).

Fear that hardens, and fear that gathers

Fear of a person can harden into enmity, as it did in Saul (1 Samuel 18:29; 10.1). The fear of God gathers people instead: "I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts" (Psalm 119:63). "Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another" (Malachi 3:16).

Anger between people

Much of what Scripture says about anger is about anger between people.

Kinship stops strife, or feeds it. Abram: "Let there be no strife between you and me … for we are kinsmen" (Genesis 13:8). He gave Lot the choice. In another quarrel, kinship is the weapon: "Because the king is our close relative. Why then are you angry over this matter?" (2 Samuel 19:42). And "a brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city" (Proverbs 18:19).
Anger at a brother is judged like murder, and worship waits on peace. "Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment … First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:22, 24).
The anger of the powerful decides others' fate. "A king's wrath is like the growling of a lion" (Proverbs 19:12). Those under it plead (Genesis 44:18), read it as a sign ("if he is angry, then know that harm is determined by him", 1 Samuel 20:7), or reach it through a go-between (Acts 12:20).
The oppressor's wrath is shown with its end in view. The king of Babylon "ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution" (Isaiah 14:6). The taunt over him begins "How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury ceased!" (14:4), and ends "The whole earth is at rest and quiet" (14:7).
A leader's anger can yield to a reason. Moses was angry at Aaron's sons. When Aaron explained, "when Moses heard that, he approved" (Leviticus 10:20).
Anger is learned. "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare" (Proverbs 22:24–25).
Strife has a source inside. "Your passions are at war within you" (James 4:1). Chapter 10.6 follows that.
It wears a household down. "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife" (Proverbs 21:9). The image is "a continual dripping on a rainy day" (27:15): duration, not a storm.
The one attacked feels it inside. "In anger they bear a grudge against me. My heart is in anguish within me" (Psalm 55:3–4).
The trembling word is used of quarrel and rage. Joseph sends his brothers home with "Do not quarrel on the way" (Genesis 45:24), and the word is rāgaz, "to tremble". "If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet" (Proverbs 29:9).
Love does not get provoked. Love "is not irritable" (1 Corinthians 13:5).
One person's sin can bring trouble on many. David, under the plague, asks to bear it alone: "these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house" (2 Samuel 24:17).
Vengeance is left to God. "Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God … if your enemy is hungry, feed him" (Romans 12:19–20).

Several times Scripture answers human anger not with a rebuke but with a question, or a new way of seeing.

Joseph to his brothers: "it was not you who sent me here, but God" (Genesis 45:8).
The father to his angry elder son: "this your brother was dead, and is alive" (Luke 15:32). The son had said "this son of yours" (15:30).
Jesus to the disciples, indignant at two of their number: "whoever would be great among you must be your servant" (Matthew 20:26).

Twice the text ends before the angry one answers: Jonah, and the elder brother.

Connections: with feeling (10.1), since strife is anger between people and fear spreads; with God (10.9), whose fear governs the treatment of others; with speaking (10.5) and thinking (10.4); with feeling, since inner states spread and care is for others (10.1; Chapter 11); with hiding and disclosing (10.11); with life and death (Chapter 2), since love and loyalty reach to death.

Chapter 11 draws together the patterns that run through all of this.