15. Beyond the named words

Everything so far has followed the verses that name the heart, the soul, the spirit, flesh, the conscience or the bosom. Then I asked a simple question. When Scripture speaks of fear, anger, joy, grief, desire or doubt, how often does it name one of these words at all?

The answer is: not often. Only about one verse in ten that speaks of an inner state names the heart, the soul or the spirit in the same verse. Most of the fear in Scripture is stated simply: "Saul was afraid." Most of the anger is simply anger. Most of the time, the inner life is shown in other ways.

Other ways Scripture shows the inner life

The state is named with no inner word at all. People are afraid, perplexed, angry or anxious. Peter "was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision … might mean" (Acts 10:17).
The face and the body show it. "Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?'" (Genesis 4:5–6).
An act shows it. "I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself" (Genesis 3:10). The fear comes out as hiding.
Speech shows it. Complaint, questions, cries: "What does this mean?"
Another person reads it. Jezebel reads Ahab: "Why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food?" (1 Kings 21:5). God reads Cain. Jesus reads his disciples: "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38).
Another inner place stands in. "Within me", the inward parts, the bones, the kidneys, the bowels. "The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body" (Proverbs 18:8). In Hebrew, the word for anger is the word for the nostril, the place where God breathed life in (Chapter 2).
Something from outside reaches in. "You hid your face; I was dismayed" (Psalm 30:7). "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21).
Fear reaches beyond the single person. It falls on whole peoples, and the verses say what it does to them. "The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were around Judah, and they made no war against Jehoshaphat" (2 Chronicles 17:10). "Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone" (Exodus 15:16). A people can be held still, or kept from war, by a fear that is not its own choosing.
A spirit passes by. Eliphaz: "A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance" (Job 4:15–16). The spirit is not named. The fear is felt in the flesh before anything is understood.
The earth, the waters and the dead tremble. The verses use for them the words they use for people. "When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled" (Psalm 77:16). "The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke" (Job 26:11). "The dead tremble under the waters and their inhabitants" (Job 26:5). At Sinai the people trembled (Exodus 19:16), and "the whole mountain trembled greatly" (19:18). In these verses the waters, the heavens and the dead answer God in the words used of people.
Fear is spoken to beyond people. "Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!" "Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green" (Joel 2:21–22). And some creatures are named for having no fear: the horse "laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword" (Job 39:22).
The inner state is changed from outside. "A soft answer turns away wrath" (Proverbs 15:1). "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26). Anxiety is handed over in prayer, and then "the peace of God … will guard your hearts and your minds" (Philippians 4:6–7).

Sometimes the inner word in the verse belongs not to the angry person but to someone else. When Jesus is angry, the heart named is his opponents': "grieved at their hardness of heart" (Mark 3:5). While their enemies rage, the builders "had a mind to work" (Nehemiah 4:6). Beside the council's fury, Stephen is "full of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:55).

This opens a much wider field than the one I have been walking in. The inner being is a web of activity: one inner movement leads to another inside a person, crosses outward into face, act and word, and is reached and changed from outside by other people, by circumstance and by God. The heart, soul and spirit are important places in that web, but they are not the whole of it.

I am following that web one strand at a time: thought first, then anger, then fear, and in time doubt, the hands through which the inner being acts, and many more. A strand does not get a chapter of its own. It is woven through every chapter it touches, and it may reshape them. Anger has already done so. It is now in feeling, remembering, thinking, speaking, relating, and in a new chapter on life under God's anger. Fear has followed it into feeling, knowing, speaking, choosing, right and wrong, and relating to God and to others, and into life under God's anger. Anxiety, doubt and perplexity, losing heart, grumbling, and God's hidden face have come into feeling, knowing, speaking and relating to God. Hiding, which faces both God and other people, is now one of the activities (10.11). Each strand will add to what is written and correct it where it needs correcting. I expect this narrative to keep growing.