10.5 Speaking

The word that means "meditate" (hāgāh) also means "utter", "talk" and "mutter".

From the heart to the mouth

"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). What the heart holds comes out.

"Conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words" (Isaiah 59:13).
"Their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble" (Proverbs 24:2).

It works the same way for good.

"The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice" (Psalm 37:30).
"My mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips" (Proverbs 8:7).
"My tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long" (Psalm 71:24).

David prays that both ends of the path will be acceptable together: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord" (Psalm 19:14).

The Hebrew word for breathing gives Proverbs its phrase for the false witness. "A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies" (Proverbs 14:5). "A truthful witness saves lives, but one who breathes out lies is deceitful" (14:25). What is breathed out can also be contempt. Of all his foes, the wicked man "puffs at them" (Psalm 10:5). God says to the priests, "you snort at it" (Malachi 1:13). Chapter 2 follows the breath God gives.

False words can reach life itself. God condemns the prophetesses "putting to death souls who should not die and keeping alive souls who should not live, by your lying to my people, who listen to lies" (Ezekiel 13:19). "You have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him" (13:22).

Proverbs puts it in one line: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits" (Proverbs 18:21). The first word spoken against God's command was about death: "But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die.'" (Genesis 3:4). Chapter 2 ("Death and sin") follows it.

The tongue, the lips and the eyes devise

Several verses give the tongue, the lips and the eyes the verbs of planning.

"Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit" (Psalm 52:2).
"They do not speak peace, but against those who are quiet in the land they devise words of deceit" (Psalm 35:20).
"Whoever winks his eyes plans dishonest things; he who purses his lips brings evil to pass" (Proverbs 16:30).
"All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me" (Psalm 41:7).
Jeremiah's enemies: "Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah … let us strike him with the tongue" (Jeremiah 18:18).

The pause between

There can be a pause between thought and word, and Scripture values it. "The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things" (Proverbs 15:28). Job makes a resolve about his speech before he speaks: "my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit" (Job 27:4).

When mouth and heart part

Speech can cover the heart instead of showing it. Chapter 4 gave the smooth speech with war in the heart (Psalm 55:21). Proverbs adds the host who says one thing and means another: "for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. 'Eat and drink!' he says to you, but his heart is not with you" (Proverbs 23:7).

Speech before words

Some of what comes out has no words yet. Hāgāh is also the sound of grief: "Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I moan like a dove" (Isaiah 38:14). The same word is used of mourning over an enemy. Of proud Moab, whose "boasts are false" (Jeremiah 48:30), the prophet says, "Therefore I wail for Moab; I cry out for all Moab; for the men of Kir-hareseth I mourn" (Jeremiah 48:31). And it is used of God himself, as a lion that "growls over his prey" and is "not terrified" by the shepherds who come against him (Isaiah 31:4). Idols have no such voice: "they do not make a sound in their throat" (Psalm 115:7).

Anger in words

Anger finds its way into speech, and speech can feed anger or turn it.

Held anger comes out as a ledger. Jacob: "These twenty years I have been with you" (Genesis 31:38). The elder brother: "Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command" (Luke 15:29). Elihu, after waiting for his elders to finish: "I must speak, that I may find relief" (Job 32:20).
Speech kindles strife or quenches it. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1). "With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone" (25:15). "For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases" (26:20).
Anger in speech is poison. "They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's, and under their lips is the venom of asps" (Psalm 140:3). In the lists, anger stands with "slander, and obscene talk from your mouth" (Colossians 3:8).
Not every curse can land. Balaam, hired to curse, says, "How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?" (Numbers 23:8). The word is empty when it goes beyond God's verdict.
God gives words to return with. "Take with you words and return to the Lord" (Hosea 14:2). Chapter 13 follows this.

Speech is heard

Every word that goes out is heard, and Scripture follows it there.

By God, in both directions:

"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, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name" (Malachi 3:16).

The plots of enemies and the talk of the faithful both reach him. Before any of it is spoken, he knows it: "Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether" (Psalm 139:4).

By people: Esau's private sentence about killing his brother did not stay private. "The words of Esau her older son were told to Rebekah" (Genesis 27:42).

Fear and the mouth

Fear reaches the mouth in two opposite ways. It shuts it, or it makes it say what is not true.

It shuts the mouth when the truth would hurt. "Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli" (1 Samuel 3:15), and Eli had to press him: "Do not hide it from me" (3:17). David's servants "were afraid to tell him that the child was dead", and they said why: "He may do himself some harm" (2 Samuel 12:18). Here the silence is fear for the one who must hear. Elihu's silence was different. He held back before older men: "I was timid and afraid to declare my opinion to you" (Job 32:6).

Job names a darker silence, in order to swear he has not kept it. In his oath of innocence he says, "if I have concealed my transgressions as others do by hiding my iniquity in my heart, because I stood in great fear of the multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence" (Job 31:33–34). The fear of what people would think keeps a sin hidden and the mouth shut. Job says that was not his way.

It makes the mouth lie when the truth looks dangerous to the speaker. Isaac said of his wife, "She is my sister," "thinking, 'lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah'" (Genesis 26:7). Sarah, caught laughing, "denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh,' for she was afraid" (Genesis 18:15). In both, the fear is for oneself, and the lie is its shield. Job longs for the opposite before God: "Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me. Then I would speak without fear of him" (Job 9:34–35).

Words are also used to put fear into others. The Assyrian officers shouted "in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, in order that they might take the city" (2 Chronicles 32:18). They chose the language the people on the wall would understand. Nehemiah's enemies wanted the same: "Their hands will drop from the work". Nehemiah answered with a prayer for the very thing fear would take: "But now, O God, strengthen my hands" (Nehemiah 6:9).

And the words that comfort fear can be used to deceive. Jael said to Sisera, "Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me; do not be afraid" (Judges 4:18), and then took the tent peg (4:21). Absalom told his servants to strike Amnon: "Do not fear; have I not commanded you?" (2 Samuel 13:28). The words are the same as God's "fear not" (Isaiah 41:10). What they are for is the opposite. Section 10.10 sets out the same words spoken in kindness.

Grumbling

Grumbling is complaint said out loud, by many people together, against those who lead them. The Hebrew word is lûn, "to grumble", and alongside it rāgan, "to murmur". Moses and Aaron hear it first, but Moses says it is not about them: "Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord" (Exodus 16:8). "What are we, that you grumble against us?" (16:7). God says the same: "I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me" (Numbers 14:27).

It starts from what is felt and what is heard.

Thirst and hunger. "The people grumbled against Moses, saying, 'What shall we drink?'" (Exodus 15:24). "The people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses" (17:3).
A report. The spies "made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land" (Numbers 14:36). The spies had said, "we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers" (13:33), and "the people wept that night" (14:1).
A death. The day after Korah's rebellion was judged, "all the congregation … grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, 'You have killed the people of the Lord'" (Numbers 16:41).
A promise kept. The leaders would not attack the Gibeonites "because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord … Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders" (Joshua 9:18).

What it says is a retelling of the past. The rescue from Egypt is told again as if it were a plan to kill them.

"Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Exodus 16:3).
"Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" (17:3).
"Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!" (Numbers 14:2).
"You murmured in your tents and said, 'Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt'" (Deuteronomy 1:27). The next verse says what was underneath: "Our brothers have made our hearts melt" (1:28).

That last grumbling was said "in your tents" (Deuteronomy 1:27; also Psalm 106:25). The psalm names what went with it: "they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise. They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the Lord" (Psalm 106:24–25). In Deuteronomy it goes with refusal: "you would not go up, but rebelled" (Deuteronomy 1:26). At Rephidim it came close to violence: "They are almost ready to stone me" (Exodus 17:4).

Grumbling is answered in more than one way.

With provision. At Marah, Moses "cried to the Lord", and "the water became sweet" (Exodus 15:25).
With judgement. "Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness … who have grumbled against me" (Numbers 14:29).
With a sign. Aaron's staff that budded was kept "as a sign for the rebels, that you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die" (Numbers 17:10).
With a promise. "Those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction" (Isaiah 29:24).

One man in the crowd did not grumble, and God names what made him different: "my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land" (Numbers 14:24).

Whispering

The word for murmuring in the tents, rāgan, is also the word for the whisperer in Proverbs. The grumbler speaks against a leader, and through him against God. The whisperer speaks to a hearer about someone else.

It separates. "A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends" (Proverbs 16:28).
It feeds a quarrel. "For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases" (Proverbs 26:20).
It is wanted. "The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body" (Proverbs 18:8; 26:22). The hearer takes them in like food.

Proverbs puts two pictures straight after it. "Like the glaze covering an earthen vessel are fervent lips with an evil heart" (26:23). "When he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart" (26:25). The pleasant words cover the heart they come from (see the section on mouth and heart parting, above). And the speaker is not safe either: the verse before the "delicious morsels" (18:8) says, "A fool's mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul" (18:7).

Connections

From feeling (10.1): anger is released in words, and a soft answer turns it away. Fear silences speech, or bends it into a lie.

From thinking (10.4): murmuring becomes uttering.
Into hearing (10.2): what is spoken is heard, by people and by God.
Into relating (10.9, 10.10): prayer, comfort, plotting and slander are all speech. Grumbling against leaders is heard as grumbling against God, and whispering separates friends.
From hearing (10.2): a bad report made the congregation grumble (Numbers 14:36).
With hiding and disclosing (10.11): what is held is kept back or told. "Do not hide it from me" (1 Samuel 3:17).
Along the path in 10.0: tongue, lips and eyes come between the plan and the deed.
With life and breath (Chapter 2): lies are breathed out, and lying words can keep alive or put to death. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.