10.2 Knowing and hearing

Knowing belongs chiefly to the heart, as Chapter 4 showed. To pay attention is to set the heart. To understand is to have a hearing heart. To remember is to keep a thing in the heart. The spirit knows the self from within: "who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?" (1 Corinthians 2:11). The soul receives what is known as something good to taste: "knowledge will be pleasant to your soul" (Proverbs 2:10).

Hearing is the main way in. The ear receives, and the heart keeps it or refuses it. "All my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears" (Ezekiel 3:10). "Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding" (Proverbs 2:2). When the heart is hard, hearing stops: "Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen" (Exodus 7:13). "They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law" (Zechariah 7:12). A crushed spirit can block hearing as well. Israel "did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery" (Exodus 6:9).

What is heard moves everything inside. Rahab says, "As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you" (Joshua 2:11). Good news works the other way: "Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country" (Proverbs 25:25). And hearing is a kind of eating: "Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live" (Isaiah 55:2–3).

Sometimes hearing is not enough, and the inner being needs to see. Jacob's heart went numb at the news that Joseph was alive. His spirit revived only when he saw the wagons (Genesis 45:26–27).

Understanding has a source that Scripture names in the breath: "it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand" (Job 32:8; Chapter 2). And hearing God himself was a matter of life. "Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?" (Deuteronomy 4:33). Section 10.9 follows this.

Hearing goes both ways. The ear is the way in, and it is also where what goes out arrives. God hears what people say: "You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me" (Lamentations 3:61). "Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them" (Malachi 3:16). And refusing to hear goes with devising. "I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words" (Jeremiah 6:19). Jeremiah's enemies plot against him with these words: "let us not pay attention to any of his words" (Jeremiah 18:18).

What is heard can also kindle. "I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words" (Nehemiah 5:6). And when what is heard lowers the hearers' standing or exposes their guilt, rage can refuse to hear any more. Stephen's hearers "were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him … But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him" (Acts 7:54, 57). James puts hearing first for this very reason: "let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God" (James 1:19–20).

The same words, read aloud, brought fear to some and none to others. When the scroll of Jeremiah's words was read, the officials "heard all the words, they turned one to another in fear" (Jeremiah 36:16). The king cut it up column by column and burned it, and "neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments" (36:23–24).

Understanding can itself be dread: "it will be sheer terror to understand the message" (Isaiah 28:19; Chapter 13). And some hold the word in awe: "Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words" (Psalm 119:161). Section 10.9 follows those who tremble at his word.

Some things are only understood later. Of God's anger, Jeremiah says, "In the latter days you will understand it clearly" (Jeremiah 23:20). Chapter 13 follows how people read, and misread, what has happened to them.

Knowing has a beginning, and Scripture names it. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10; Psalm 111:10). To man God said, "Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding" (Job 28:28). It also runs the other way. The one who seeks wisdom "as for hidden treasures" is told, "then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:4–5). And it can be refused: "Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord" (Proverbs 1:29). The fear of God is also learned by hearing (10.9).

Wisdom, refused, says: "I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you" (Proverbs 1:26). And "whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster" (1:33).

What is known is also kept and returned to. Remembering feeds thinking: "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands" (Psalm 143:5).

Perplexity

Perplexity is knowing that cannot close. Something has been seen or heard, and the person cannot yet say what it means. The Greek words are aporeō, "to be at a loss, perplexed", and diaporeō, "to be greatly perplexed"; Daniel's Aramaic has shevash, "to be perplexed".

It rises when what is seen or heard goes beyond what the person can make sense of.

An empty tomb: "While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel" (Luke 24:4).
Their own languages spoken by Galileans: "all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'" (Acts 2:12).
A vision: "Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean" (Acts 10:17).
Jesus's word that one of them would betray him: "The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke" (John 13:22).
Writing on a wall that no one could read: "his lords were perplexed" (Daniel 5:9).

What perplexity does shows in those same verses. It asks aloud ("What does this mean?", Acts 2:12). It looks at others (John 13:22). It stays inside ("inwardly perplexed", Acts 10:17, literally in himself). Festus, "being at a loss how to investigate these questions", passed the question on to someone else (Acts 25:20).

It can sit beside other feelings in one person. "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly" (Mark 6:20). Fear, knowledge, perplexity and gladness are all there, and the perplexity did not stop him listening. Paul's perplexity comes from love: "my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth … I am perplexed about you" (Galatians 4:19–20). And Paul sets a limit to it: "perplexed, but not driven to despair" (2 Corinthians 4:8). In Greek the second word is the first one made stronger. He is at a loss, but not utterly at a loss.

In several of these scenes, perplexity ends when someone comes.

The two men at the tomb (Luke 24:4).
To the perplexed chief priests, "someone came and told them, 'Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people'" (Acts 5:24–25).
At Peter's gate, the men from Cornelius, and then the Spirit: "the Spirit said to him, 'Behold, three men are looking for you'" (Acts 10:17, 19).
Peter "lifted up his voice" to the crowd (Acts 2:14).
The queen named Daniel, in whom "an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found" (Daniel 5:12).

Understanding that is hidden

Some not-knowing is not the person's failure at all. The verses say the understanding was hidden from them. The words are those for hiding (kruptō, parakaluptō, "to hide, conceal"; sātar, "to hide").

Hidden for a time. "They did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying" (Luke 9:45). The next verse: "An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest" (9:46). And again: "This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said" (Luke 18:34).
Hidden as judgement. Over Jerusalem: "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42). Isaiah: "the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden" (Isaiah 29:14), of a people whose "hearts are far from me" (29:13).
Hidden by God, and given to others. "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children" (Matthew 11:25). Jesus says it in thanks.
Hidden from myself. "Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults" (Psalm 19:12). The psalm ends by handing the heart's meditation over to God's sight (19:14).

The person on the other side of it responds in different ways. The disciples were afraid to ask. The psalmist pleads, "I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!", and the next verse gives the reason: "My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times" (Psalm 119:19–20). And Moses draws a line between what is hidden and what is given: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). What is revealed is given in order to be done.

Doubt

I read doubt as a different thing from perplexity. The perplexed do not know what they are looking at. In the verses that name doubt, the person knows whom he is looking at, and his trust is split. The Greek words are distazō, "to doubt", and dipsuchos, "double-minded", which is literally two-souled.

Peter shows it in his body. "When he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me.' Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" (Matthew 14:30–31). He saw the wind, he was afraid, he sank. The doubt is named after the rescue, by the one who rescued him.

Doubt can stand beside worship in the same company. On the mountain in Galilee, "when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted" (Matthew 28:17). The text leaves both standing, and Jesus goes straight on to send them all.

James gives doubt its picture and its word. "Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind … he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (James 1:6, 8). The wave is driven by the wind, and the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And James names where the remedy is to be done: "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8). James does not say where the doubt is. He names the heart as the place to be made clean.

Doubt is also asked about from outside. "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38; section 10.4).

Connections: into thinking (10.4), where doubts arise in the heart; with feeling (10.1), since perplexity keeps company with fear and gladness, and doubt with fear; with relating to God (10.9), since understanding can be hidden by God or asked of him; into feeling (10.1), since what is heard kindles anger; with remembering (10.3); from speaking (10.5), since what is said is heard; with feeling (10.1), since what is heard melts or revives the heart; with God (10.9), where the fear of the Lord is learned and is the beginning of knowledge.