11. Patterns of the inner life

When I read the inner words across all of Scripture, and read each passage with what comes before and after it, certain patterns kept coming back. None of them is a doctrine stated in a single verse. I set them out side by side, as the passages give them.

1. The inner being is acted upon as much as it acts

I expected the heart, soul and spirit to be mainly the doers in the verses. Very often they are the ones being done to.

God turns and puts things into hearts. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). "Blessed be the Lord … who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king" (Ezra 7:27).
God stirs spirits. "The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia" (Ezra 1:1).
God hardens. "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt" (Exodus 14:8). "The Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate" (Deuteronomy 2:30).
Dread is laid on, given, and comes upon. "The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread" (Deuteronomy 11:25). In the curse, "the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul" (Deuteronomy 28:65). And the verbs make the dread the one that acts: "dread came upon me" (Job 4:14); "trembling has seized the godless" (Isaiah 33:14); "Trembling took hold of them there" (Psalm 48:6); "a great trembling fell upon them" (Daniel 10:7).
Others steal, sway and turn hearts. "Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel" (2 Samuel 15:6). Solomon's "wives turned away his heart after other gods" (1 Kings 11:4).
Things are poured in. "Satan filled your heart" (Acts 5:3). "God's love has been poured into our hearts" (Romans 5:5).
Even the leaning is formed. The word for the heart's "intention" (Genesis 6:5) is the word for what a potter forms (Isaiah 29:16) and for our "frame" (Psalm 103:14). God fills craftsmen "with skill" to devise (Exodus 35:35). He promises, "I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts" (Hebrews 8:10). And other powers act on thinking too: "the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Kings' hearts are "unsearchable" to their subjects (Proverbs 25:3), yet in God's hand they are like water.

Enticement shows the same thing. The same verb is used for being drawn by several very different enticers. Job asks whether "my heart has been enticed toward a woman" (Job 31:9). False teachers "entice unsteady souls" (2 Peter 2:14). In the heavenly council a spirit offers, "I will entice him", and becomes "a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets" (1 Kings 22:21–22). And God says of unfaithful Israel, "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her" (Hosea 2:14), literally to her heart. Then he makes "the Valley of Achor a door of hope" (2:15).

On the night Israel left, "the mind [heart] of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, 'What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?'" (Exodus 14:5). Then the Lord hardened his heart, "and he pursued" (14:8). The heart had already changed (14:5) before the Lord hardened it (14:8). And I have found no text in which God hardens his own heart.

2. Thresholds: the merry heart and the sad heart

In a number of stories, a heart made merry with food and wine comes just before a decisive event.

Amnon: "Mark when Amnon's heart is merry with wine … then kill him" (2 Samuel 13:28).
King Ahasuerus: "when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded … to bring Queen Vashti", and when she refused, "his anger burned within him" (Esther 1:10–12).
The Philistines: "when their hearts were merry, they said, 'Call Samson'", and the house fell (Judges 16:25–30).
Gibeah: "as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city … surrounded the house" (Judges 19:22).
Boaz: "when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry", Ruth came to him and asked him to be her redeemer (Ruth 3:7–9).
Nabal: "Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk". The next morning, "his heart died within him" (1 Samuel 25:36–37).
Haman leaves Esther's banquet "joyful and glad of heart", sees Mordecai, and builds a gallows (Esther 5:9–14). Between the glad heart and the gallows comes anger: "he was filled with wrath against Mordecai" (5:9), and "all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate" (5:13).

The same threshold is reached by other roads. Uzziah's heart was lifted by strength, not wine: "when he was strong, he grew proud". When the priests withstood him, "Uzziah was angry" (2 Chronicles 26:16, 19).

What follows in these stories is murder, anger, catastrophe, outrage, redemption, a dead heart and a gallows. The rich fool says the same words to his soul: "Soul … relax, eat, drink, be merry". The next line: "Fool! This night your soul is required of you" (Luke 12:19–20).

There is a counter-pattern: the sad heart at the feast. Hannah would not eat. Her husband asked, "why is your heart sad?" After the meal she rose and prayed, and she went away with her face "no longer sad" (1 Samuel 1:8–18). Nehemiah stood before the king "when wine was before him", and the king asked, "Why is your face sad …? This is nothing but sadness of the heart". Nehemiah prayed, then asked, and was given what he asked (Nehemiah 2:1–5). The sad heart at a feast is also a threshold. But what enters there is prayer, and what follows is a gift.

Some refuse the threshold. "Daniel resolved [set on his heart] that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank" (Daniel 1:8). Uriah would not go home and feast while the ark and the army camped in the field: "As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing" (2 Samuel 11:11).

Solomon's people "went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown" (1 Kings 8:66). And eating can carry the soul the other way across the threshold: the angel's bread carried Elijah from wanting to die to walking forty days to Horeb (1 Kings 19:5–8).

3. The parts give way in sequence

Some passages show the inner being giving way part by part, in order.

Samson (Judges 16):

Delilah: "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me?" (16:15)
"His soul was vexed to death" (16:16).
"He told her all his heart" (16:17).
"His strength left him … he did not know that the Lord had left him" (16:19–20).
Blinded and mocked, he asks for strength: "please strengthen me only this once" (16:28).
"Let me die with the Philistines" (16:30), literally let my soul die.

The soul gave way first, then the heart was given away, then the strength went, because the Lord had gone. At the end, strength is asked for, not owned, and joined to the soul's consent to die.

Psalm 143 shows a collapse spreading from one part to the next, then turning. "The enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground" (143:3). "Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled" (143:4). Then a turn: "I remember the days of old" (143:5), and "my soul thirsts for you like a parched land" (143:6).

Proverbs gives the same chain in two lines: "by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed" (15:13), and "a crushed spirit dries up the bones" (17:22). Heart, then spirit, then body.

The chain can start with a thought. When Belshazzar saw the writing, "his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together" (Daniel 5:6). Thought first, then the body.

4. One word, opposite values

Again and again I found a single word for an inner state that is good in one place and bad in another. What decides is not the word but what the inner being is yielding to, or holding firm against.

A tender heart. It melts before an enemy and spreads fear to others (Deuteronomy 20:8). But Josiah's heart "was penitent [tender]" before God's word, and God answered him with peace (2 Kings 22:19–20). The same softness is cowardice in one place and repentance in the other.
A strong heart. "Be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (Psalm 27:14). With Absalom, the same verb gives his servants the nerve to kill: "be courageous and be valiant" (2 Samuel 13:28). With Pharaoh it is hardening: "I will harden his heart" (Exodus 4:21), literally strengthen.
A guarded heart. "Keep your heart with all vigilance" (Proverbs 4:23). Three chapters later the same word describes the adulteress, "wily [guarded] of heart" (Proverbs 7:10).
Crushing. Crushed by an enemy, the spirit collapses (Psalm 143:3–4). Offered to God, a crushed spirit is the very sacrifice he wants: "a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).
Loving and hating one's own soul (Chapter 5).
Devising. The same Hebrew verb describes the craftsmen who worked cherubim "skillfully" into the tabernacle curtains (Exodus 26:1) and those who plot. One word for planning means "discretion" (Proverbs 2:11), "evil devices" (Proverbs 12:2), and God's own purpose: "no purpose of yours can be thwarted" (Job 42:2).
Planning against. God says, "I am … devising a plan against you. Return" (Jeremiah 18:11), and the people say, "Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah" (18:18). The word and the "against" are the same. One plan is meant to bring people back, and the other is meant to silence the one who calls them.
Reckoning. People misreckon: "we esteemed him stricken" (Isaiah 53:4). God reckons faith "as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). The law reckons in order to release (Leviticus 25:50). Love refuses to reckon at all: it "is not … resentful" (1 Corinthians 13:5).
Likening. Comparing is how love praises ("I compare you, my love", Song of Songs 1:9), how comfort reaches out (Lamentations 2:13), and how worship ends ("who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?", Psalm 89:6). It is also how pride rises: "I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14).
Reasoning. The Greek word is Mary's honest pondering (Luke 1:29), the disciples' anxious circling (Mark 8:17), and a quarrel (Philippians 2:14; 1 Timothy 2:8).
The nose. The Hebrew word for anger, ʾaph, is the nostril where God breathed in life (Genesis 2:7), the face bowed in worship (2 Chronicles 7:3), and the face lifted in pride (Psalm 10:4). It can be given a ring in love (Ezekiel 16:12) or a hook for raging (2 Kings 19:28). "Long of nostrils" is patience, in God and in the wise (Exodus 34:6; Proverbs 14:29).
Anger. Jesus's anger heals (Mark 3:5). A crowd's anger stops its ears and kills (Acts 7:57–58). "Be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26).
Vexation. It is provocation done to another (1 Samuel 1:6), suffering borne (1:16), and "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad" (Ecclesiastes 7:3).
Provoking. Love "is not irritable" (1 Corinthians 13:5), with the same word that tells believers to "stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24).
Overflow. One Hebrew word, ʿebrah, is the overflow of anger and the overflow of pride. God offers it to Job with irony: "Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him" (Job 40:11). And "'Scoffer' is the name of the arrogant, haughty man who acts with arrogant pride" (Proverbs 21:24), where the word is the same.
Storm. The same storm word, sāʿar, is the angry king's mind ("the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled", 2 Kings 6:11) and the suffering city ("O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted", Isaiah 54:11).
Denouncing. "How can I curse whom God has not cursed?" (Numbers 23:8). But "Whoever says to the wicked, 'You are in the right,' will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations" (Proverbs 24:24). The word is empty when it goes against God's verdict, and it lands when it follows justice.
A creed. "Slow to anger" is used in worship, in pleading, in confession, in Jonah's complaint, in praise, in wonder, in announcing judgment, and as the ground for returning (Chapter 10.9).
Mourning. Aaron is forbidden to mourn "lest … wrath come" (Leviticus 10:6). When the wrath has come, mourning is commanded (Jeremiah 4:8).
God's hand. The "mighty hand" brought Israel out (Deuteronomy 6:21) and later fought "against you … in anger" (Jeremiah 21:5).
Fear. One word, yārēʾ, "to fear", names the fear that drives a person away from God and the fear of God that keeps a person from sin. In one sentence Moses takes the first away and sets the second in its place: "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin" (Exodus 20:20). The same people, with the same word, are afraid of Egypt and then fear the Lord (Exodus 14:10, 31). Turned round, the word describes the one who is feared: "the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love" (Nehemiah 1:5). Section 10.1 sets this out.
"Do not fear." God says it with a reason, and the reason is himself: "for I am with you" (Isaiah 41:10). Joseph says it and refuses to stand in God's place (Genesis 50:19, 21). Jael says it before the tent peg (Judges 4:18). The words are the same. What they are for is not.
Trembling and dread. The Hebrew words for trembling and dread are rendered as fear, and also as "Be angry" (Psalm 4:4), "deeply moved" (2 Samuel 18:33), a heart that "trembled for the ark of God" (1 Samuel 4:13), and "your heart shall thrill and exult" (Isaiah 60:5). I read them as naming one inner stirring, which its situation turns into fear, anger, grief, care or joy (10.1).
"None shall make you afraid." It is promised peace: "I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid" (Leviticus 26:6). The same Hebrew phrase is used of desolation: "The cities of Aroer are deserted; they will be for flocks, which will lie down, and none will make them afraid" (Isaiah 17:2). One phrase describes rest for a people and the emptiness left when they are gone.
Care. The Greek merimnaō, "to be anxious, to care", is rebuked when it is about my own food and clothing (Matthew 6:25) and praised when it is "genuinely concerned for your welfare" (Philippians 2:20). The Hebrew dāʾag, "to be anxious, to dread", is dread of what may come (Jeremiah 38:19), a father's worry for his son (1 Samuel 10:2), and sorrow for sin: "I am sorry for my sin" (Psalm 38:18). Section 10.1 sets this out.
Hiding. The Hebrew sātar, "to hide", is God hiding a person in safety and God hiding his face, four verses apart (Psalm 27:5, 9), and a sinner asking God to hide his face from his sins (Psalm 51:9). A treasure is hidden "in his joy", and a talent hidden because "I was afraid" (Matthew 13:44; 25:25). Sections 10.9 and 10.11.
Murmuring. The Hebrew rāgan is the people's complaint "in your tents" against God (Deuteronomy 1:27) and the whisperer's words that separate friends (Proverbs 16:28) (10.5).
Remembering. It bows the soul down and it gives hope, in two consecutive verses (Lamentations 3:20–21; Chapter 10.3).
The bed. It is the same place, but what happens there goes either way. "He plots trouble while on his bed" (Psalm 36:4). "I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night" (Psalm 63:6).

What changes the character

A word, or an activity, does not carry its value inside itself. The same act changes character with its circumstances. When I set the cases side by side, the verses themselves point to what makes the difference. I give these as what I have found so far, not as a fixed list.

Which way it faces. For someone or against them. "Discretion will watch over you" (Proverbs 2:11). "All their thoughts are against me for evil" (Psalm 56:5). But "against" alone does not decide it. God's plan against a nation is open to its turning: "if that nation … turns from its evil, I will relent" (Jeremiah 18:8). What decides is what the act is for.
The company it keeps. Discretion keeps company with knowledge and prudence (Proverbs 1:4; 8:12), the evil device with arrogance and pride (Psalm 10:2, 4) and a quick temper (Proverbs 14:17). Plans are established by counsel (Proverbs 20:18) and by being committed to the Lord (16:3). Whispering together makes a plot (Psalm 41:7).
The state of the heart it rises from. The same tender heart is cowardice in one place and repentance in another (Deuteronomy 20:8; 2 Kings 22:19, above). Paul names the order of cause: people are "darkened in their understanding … due to their hardness of heart" (Ephesians 4:18).
Ease or distress. "In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune" (Job 12:5). Under suffering, God's reckoning is felt as enmity: "Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?" (Job 13:24). This is still a small set of verses, and I hold it loosely.
Distress turns people both ways. In distress Manasseh "humbled himself greatly" (2 Chronicles 33:12), and Ahaz "became yet more faithless" (28:22). The texts set the cases side by side without saying why. Ease cuts both ways too: "I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease" (Zechariah 1:15).
What it is joined with. Anger joined with grief heals (Mark 3:5). Joined with jealousy, it "will accept no compensation" (Proverbs 6:34–35).
How long it lasts. For anger, time is part of what it is. It is to end before sunset (Ephesians 4:26). It turns away as a brother forgets (Genesis 27:45). God's is "but for a moment" (Psalm 30:5). Edom "kept his wrath forever" (Amos 1:11).
Whether it is seen truly. Anger kindled by a lie still acts (Genesis 39:19). The heavy hand of God, felt from fear, is misread (Matthew 25:24–25).
The answer it meets. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1). A question, or a new way of seeing, does more than a rebuke (Genesis 4:6; 45:8; Luke 15:32).
Haste or a pause. "Everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty" (Proverbs 21:5). "Be not quick in your spirit to become angry" (Ecclesiastes 7:9). "The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer" (15:28).
Where it happens. The bed holds plotting and prayer (Psalm 36:4; 63:6). But one place does change what thinking can see: "until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end" (Psalm 73:17).
What it is turned toward. At the sea "they feared greatly" as Egypt marched (Exodus 14:10). After the crossing, "the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord" (14:31). The sailors "were afraid" in the storm, and when the sea was calm "the men feared the Lord exceedingly" (Jonah 1:5, 16). Fear of man is set against him: "who are you that you are afraid of man who dies … and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker" (Isaiah 51:12–13).
Whether the heart is in it. Fear of God can be "a commandment taught by men" while "their hearts are far from me" (Isaiah 29:13). God promises the other: "I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me" (Jeremiah 32:40).
Who speaks it, and to what end. The same words of comfort, "do not fear", come from God, from a friend, and from one who means harm (§4 above; 10.5; 10.10).
Who hears it. The same scroll was read to the officials and to the king. The officials "turned one to another in fear" (Jeremiah 36:16). The king and his servants "who heard all these words" were not afraid (36:24).
Whether it divides the person. Martha was "anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary" (Luke 10:41–42). Paul wants "undivided devotion to the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:35). The double-minded man is "unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8).
Who acts on whom. God hiding a person is safety, and God hiding his face is dismay (Psalm 27:5, 9). Losing heart is always done by another (10.1).
Whether it is brought before God. "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). Many cares, met by his consolations (Psalm 94:19). Anxiety made known to God, and his peace guarding the heart (Philippians 4:6–7). Thoughts offered to be searched (Psalm 139:23). Thoughts taken "captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).
What comes back. What is devised returns on the deviser (Esther 9:25; Micah 2:1–3), and the diligent plan returns as abundance (Proverbs 21:5).
What it is set against. "To live" is said of a span of years, of escaping hunger or the sword, of recovering from illness, of the dead given life again, and of the heart and spirit revived (Chapter 2). The verses pair it with what it escapes: "that we may live and not die" (Genesis 42:2); "so turn, and live" (Ezekiel 18:32); "why will you die, O house of Israel?" (33:11). The breath God gives can come back out of a person as lies: "a false witness breathes out lies" (Proverbs 14:5).
What brings it about, and who acts. "Die" is said of the body's end, of a sentence passed by people, of a judgment from God, of the end of a way taken, and of something that happens inside a living person: "sin came alive and I died" (Romans 7:9); "Whoever does not love abides in death" (1 John 3:14). It is said of a death undergone on purpose: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:2). It is said of a death that belongs to the Lord: "if we die, we die to the Lord" (Romans 14:8). The verses name what brings death: sin (Romans 5:12), "vexation" and "jealousy" (Job 5:2), "the desire of the sluggard" (Proverbs 21:25), and God, who says "I kill and I make alive" (Deuteronomy 32:39). "Put to death" is said both of executing a person and of "what is earthly in you" (Colossians 3:5). "Dead dog" is said of oneself in lowliness (2 Samuel 9:8) and of another in contempt (2 Samuel 16:9). Chapter 2 gives the account.
The story around it. A single verse rarely settles which face a word wears. Jeremiah 18:8–18 does, and so does Genesis 50:20.

I find this freeing. Scripture does not hand me a list of good feelings and bad feelings, or good thoughts and bad thoughts. Each new part of the inner life I read adds to this list, and I expect it to grow.

5. Voices to the soul

A person can speak to their own soul, in at least five settings (Chapter 5): lament ("Why are you cast down, O my soul?"), praise ("Bless the Lord, O my soul"), rest ("Return, O my soul, to your rest"), battle ("March on, my soul, with might!"), and self-indulgence ("Soul … relax, eat, drink, be merry"). Others speak to the soul too, and not always well: "How can you say to my soul, 'Flee like a bird to your mountain'?" (Psalm 11:1). And the psalmist asks God himself to speak to it: "Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation!'" (Psalm 35:3).

What I take from this is that my soul is not beyond my reach. I can argue with it, calm it and call it to hope. And others speak to it too.

6. Inner states pass between people

The inner being is not sealed.

Fear spreads, which is why the fainthearted soldier is sent home (Deuteronomy 20:8) and why Gideon sends home "whoever is fearful and trembling" (Judges 7:3).
Souls are knit together, as Jonathan's was to David's (1 Samuel 18:1). In the same chapter, Saul's anger at the same young man ends with "a harmful spirit from God" rushing upon him (18:10). One victory, two households, two opposite inner movements.
Spirit is shared and passed on. Elisha asks, "Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me" (2 Kings 2:9). God takes of the Spirit on Moses and puts it on the seventy elders (Numbers 11:17, 25).
Rest is received through people. Paul's spirit had no rest without Titus (2 Corinthians 2:13), and was refreshed when Titus came (7:13). Jesus offers rest that passes from his heart to ours: "learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29).
Reasoning passes into a shared deed. The tenants "said to themselves, 'This is the heir. Let us kill him'" (Luke 20:14).
Anger is learned from company. "Make no friendship with a man given to anger … lest you learn his ways" (Proverbs 22:24–25). Jacob refuses the angry brothers' company: "Let my soul come not into their council" (Genesis 49:6).
Provocation is handed on. A king "made Israel to sin" (1 Kings 14:16). "Like mother, like daughter" (Ezekiel 16:44).
Not counting passes on. Love "is not … resentful", literally it does not reckon up wrong (1 Corinthians 13:5). This is how God dealt with us, "not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

7. The inner being is governed

Scripture takes the words it uses for ruling, serving, guarding and judging in society and turns them inward.

Ruling: "he who rules his spirit [is better] than he who takes a city" (Proverbs 16:32). "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (Colossians 3:15).
Guarding: "Keep your heart with all vigilance" (Proverbs 4:23). "Keep your soul diligently, lest you forget" (Deuteronomy 4:9). "Guard yourselves in your spirit" (Malachi 2:15).
Serving: "I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (Romans 7:25).
Judging: "whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart" (1 John 3:20).

The words for ruling and guarding are used of the inner being: "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls" (Proverbs 25:28).

8. God has a heart and a soul

The inner words are not only for humans. Scripture gives God a heart and a soul, and lets them act.

"It grieved him to his heart" (Genesis 6:6).
"My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender" (Hosea 11:8).
"I will rejoice in doing them good … with all my heart and all my soul" (Jeremiah 32:41).
"My soul delights" in his chosen servant (Isaiah 42:1). "My soul hates" empty feasts held with bloodied hands (Isaiah 1:14–15).
He swears "by himself" (Amos 6:8), literally by his soul.
He "does not afflict from his heart" (Lamentations 3:33).
He holds back his anger for reasons of his own: "I will not execute my burning anger … for I am God and not a man" (Hosea 11:9).
And the one place where his inner self turns away from a people is not hardness: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people" (Jeremiah 15:1).

Leviticus 26 shows God's soul and the people's soul in a movement back and forth. God promises: "my soul shall not abhor you" (26:11). The people's "soul abhors my rules" (26:15). God answers in kind: "my soul will abhor you" (26:30). Then, at the end, God breaks the exchange: "Yet for all that … I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them" (26:44). The same verb passes between two souls, and God refuses to return it a final time.

God also thinks and plans. "The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations" (Psalm 33:11). "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isaiah 55:8). Where human plans and his cross, his stand: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). Even a cold calculation can be taken up into his purpose. Caiaphas reckoned "that it is better for you that one man should die for the people" (John 11:50). John adds: "He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation" (11:51).

And God speaks in his heart. After the flood, "the Lord said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth'" (Genesis 8:21). Before the flood, the same evil intention had grieved him "to his heart" (6:5–6). Now he names it again, and it is the reason he gives for holding back.