Here is where the social sciences differ from the natural sciences as twilight differs from sunlight.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).” Even those who want to know themselves are puzzled, as the Apostle Paul confesses: the good he would do, he does not, and the evil that he does not want to do, he does (Romans 7:14-24). The inscription at the Greek oracle at Delphi exhorted suppliants, “Know yourself,” but we can’t know ourselves because self-deceit clouds self-understanding. The Bible, in fact, teaches that people do not know even themselves well.

Early in His ministry, adoring crowds outside Jerusalem followed Jesus, but John notes, “Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:24-25).” Jesus uniquely knew what people were thinking deep within, and while we do not, Solomon warns us that there are depths beneath another’s words that we can’t see. Only the naïve take everyone’s words at face value, and the Book of Proverbs scorns the naïve. I will follow the NIV’s interpretative rendering.Īs deep waters hide what lurks beneath them, a person’s words may hide his thoughts as well as reveal them. Translations in the King James tradition, like the ESV, bring the Hebrew seeming lack of clarity into English, leaving the reader to try to grasp its meaning. “A person’s words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream (Today’s English Version).” “The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream (New International Version).” The TEV interpretation teaches that people’s words are a source of wisdom the NIV with its “but,” hints at a contrast between the deep and perhaps deceitful words of a person and the reliability of God’s ever-fresh words. The point of this proverb is unclear, as comparing two other translations reveals. Bill Edgar, former chair of the Geneva College Board of Trustees, former Geneva College President and longtime pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPNCA) DecemProverbs 18:4 – The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters the wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook.īy Dr.

Another word for running short on