The Power of Your Words #2

So the "theologically correct," sophisticated, evangelicals are certain, to the point of mocking those who state otherwise, that our words do not have any real power. Words are mere blasts of wind to them. They do not effect the course of nature and they certainly have no effect of our lives. They know this to be true. It’s an "of course," a certainty, a given,  even though they’ve arrived at this knowledge without investigation or study, they are sure it is so.

In this knowledge they are opposed by most of the people who are now alive or who have ever lived. I love this story related by John Derbyshire (Pronounced dar’ bu shur) who was educated as a mathematician but is a polymath by nature who now writes for National Review and National Review Online among other journals.

In last month’s diary I mentioned Hank Williams’s rather macabre song  " The Angel of Death." Now, I hate to admit it, but this song is kind of catchy. It is so catchy I have been singing it around the house. This stopped abruptly when Rosie overheard me. "WHY ARE YOU SINGING THAT?" she shrieked. "WE DON’T WANT THOSE KINDS OF WORDS IN OUR HOUSE!" I murmured defensively that it is, after all, only a song.

At such times I think of the Comte de Beauvoir’s remark about the Chinese being the least religious people in the world, but the most superstitious. A child of, or at any rate a descendant of, the Enlightenment, with an early training in science and mathematics, I am inclined to think that words are basically patterns of vibrating molecules in air. The idea that singing about the Angel of Death might attract old Azrael’s attention to my inconspicuous little suburban homestead seems preposterous.

On reflection, though, I am not so sure of myself. I recall a dinner-party conversation I heard

many years ago. The two participants were (A) a college
friend of mine, a mathematician of keen intellect who was a single man
at the time, and (B) the wife of a friend of his, a woman at about the
same level of intelligence, but very practical, skeptical, and
atheistic. She was also the doting mother of two small children.

The woman had claimed that words are nothing but what I have just
said they are — patterns of vibration in the air. They have no power .
"All right," said my friend. "Please repeat the following words after
me: ‘I hope that my children will soon die from lingering, painful, and
disfiguring illnesses.’" The woman would not say those words. He
pressed her, but she firmly refused. "Why not?" asked my friend. "They
are only words — vibrating molecules. Why won’t you say them?"

She would not say them because she knew what we all know in our
bones, however much science and math has been pumped into our brains,
and however much we may scoff at the supernatural: that words do have
power, that the world is not just a cold tissue of atoms and molecules,
that without some reference to the supernatural, nothing makes sense —
as paradoxical as that seems. No, I won’t be singing "The Angel of
Death" around the house any more, not even when I’m here alone. Look
what happened to Hank Williams.

Now, I mention the
near universal acceptance of the proposition that, our words have
power, not to establish that words do indeed have power but only to
establish the mind set of the people who first spoke and heard and
recorded the words of the Bible. In order to discover what the words of
the Bible mean we need to understand what those words meant to those
who first spoke, heard, or recorded them. If we interpret the Bible
based on our early 21st Century, post enlightenment, scientific,
materialist, sensibility we are certain to misunderstand the Bible.

What did the people of Jesus’ day believe about words? The New Bible Dictionary, in the article titled "Curse" says the following:

“…However, for
the Hebrew, just as a word was not a mere sound on the lips but an
agent sent forth, so the spoken curse was an active agent for hurt.
Behind the word stands the soul that created it. Thus, a word which is
backed by no spiritual capacity of accomplishment is a mere ‘word of
the lip’(2Ki. xviii 20 RVmg), but when the soul is powerful the word is clothed in that power
(Ec, viii. 4; I Ch. xxi. 4). The potency of the word is seen in some of
our Lord’s healing miracles (Mt. viii. 8, 16; cf. Ps cvii. 20) and in
his cursing of the barren fig-tree…” (Emphasis mine.)

The Interpreters Dictionary of The Bible, in it’s article about Blessings and Cursings says:

– Blessings and Cursings : Power-laden words,
spoken on cultic or other occasions and often accompanied by gestures
or symbolic actions, through which the wholeness of the religious
community was understood to be safeguarded or strengthened and evil
forces controled or destroyed.
– In the ancient Near Eastern
world, as in most religious communities past and present, blessings and
cursings were a fixed part of the cultus and had a prominent place in
everyday life as well. (Emphasis added.)

The Jewish Encyclopedia in its article entitled, Blessing and Cursing says this:

… Such blessing or cursing did not involve the use of empty words, but implied the exercise of a real power;
the word once pronounced was no more under the control of the speaker
(Gen. xxvii. 35), and must perforce accomplish its mission. On this
conception is founded not only the possibility but also the whole
structure of Jacob’s deceit, as well as the story of Balaam. (Emphasis
added.)

I could give more examples like these.

Again, my point here isn’t to prove that words have power, I plan to
do that using the Bible, but only to prove that the people who first
heard the Bible words, who first recorded the Bible words, who first
spoke the Bible words believed that words have power. This was the
cultural context of Jesus’ words. The people he spoke to believed in
the supernatural power of words. They didn’t know as we in the 21st
century "know" that words are mere sounds of the lip. So when we see
references in The Bible to the power of words we can be sure that
persons who originally heard those scriptures understood them to be
references to the real literal power of words.