Theme of the Week: The Discipline of Devotion
Bible Verse: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. Psalm 40:8 ESV
Scripture Reading: Psalm 40:1-17; James 1:19-26
Eugene Peterson points out that Psalm 40:6 contains a brilliant metaphor in the original Hebrew text which graphically teaches the necessity of listening.
It literally says, “ears you have dug for me.”1. Much to our loss, no English translation preserves the metaphor, preferring to variously paraphrase it with phrases like the RSV’s “thou hast given me an open ear.” Nevertheless, the Hebrew verb retains the metaphorical nugget “dug,” which suggests, apart from God’s work, a human head without any ears — “A blockhead. Eyes, nose and mouth, but no ears.”2.
This remarkable metaphor, “ears you have dug for me,” occurs in the context of a busy religious performance which is deaf to the voice of God —“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire . . . burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.” The problem was that the Psalmist’s religious colleagues had read about how to do the rituals of sacrifice, but had missed the message. God had spoken, but they did not hear.
So what does God do? He takes a pick and shovel and mines through the sides of the “cranial granite,” making openings through which His Word can pass to the mind and heart. The result is hearing, and the hearer responds, “Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come — it is written about me in the scroll. To do your will, O my God, is my desire; your law is within my heart’” (vv. 7, 8).
The words of Scripture are not merely to be read but to be heard. They are meant to go to the heart!
The words of Scripture are not merely to be read but to be heard. They are meant to go to the heart!
The importance of having our ears dug open comes to us from the lips of Jesus: “He who has an ear, let him hear . . .” (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). We need to read God’s Word, but we must also pray that He will blast through our granite-block heads so we truly hear His Word.
1 Eugene Peterson, Working The Angles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 70.
2 Ibid.
Taken from Disciplines of a Godly Man by Kent Hughes, Copyright © 2001. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org
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