The Hearing Ear and Seeing Eye: Divine Creation and Moral Perception

The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.—Proverbs 20:12

Solomon speaks of two kinds of blindness and deafness. First, the physical: Yahweh fashioned our sensory organs, yet some men deny His authorship, attributing ear and eye to gradual evolutionary development. Yet the wisest men across every age concur with Scripture's testimony.

Second, and more vital, is spiritual perception. When Scripture praises deaf men who hear and blind men who see, it refers always to moral condition—one's attitude toward truth, righteousness, and Elohim. A snapping twig means nothing to the careless ear; to the sportsman, it reveals the prey's location. We overlook what we neither understand nor expect. Our capacity to perceive depends upon what we bring to the utterance, what we bring to the scene.

Yahweh expects us not merely to possess these faculties but to train and use them. He rewards us proportionally as we meet—or disappoint—His expectation.

Here lies the gravest peril: knowledge without love is both poor and perilous. To be clever without goodness, without reverence for Yahweh, secures only severer condemnation. True wisdom begins only when you love and reverence Elohim; when from that reverence you set yourself to know and do what is right, however difficult, and refuse what is wrong, however pleasant.

Men prize goodness above mere knowledge. A kind heart outweighs even a well-trained mind.