- Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. -
You may have already put it together, but these first verses in Chapter 5 contain a similar theme. What are they looking at exactly?
They are instructions, perhaps “expressions” is a better word, on how to fear God. Verse 2 is a command about something we struggle to control.
Our mouths.
The first command is not to be rash with our speech, meaning not to speak quickly. I’m not sure about you, but I know smart and foolish people who just run their mouth too much.
When a fool does, they make everyone know they are fool. They speak about the color of the thing while the room is concerned about the shape.
When the intelligent man speaks out of turn, he performs the same sin as the fool! He understands color to a level no one else in the room can, speaking to it in the nth degree.
Yet, he cannot listen to the true need of others wishing to understand the shape. Had he cared, then his speech could’ve been useful. Now, it is just a clanging gong.
Both are arrogant and without love. The fool is clueless, and the intellect is deaf.
What is the command? It’s found in verse 1! Learn to listen, but we’ve now expanded it past the church.
The verse then turns our attention to God. We are to not utter hasty words before God.
Fair enough. If we shouldn’t before fellow men because the action itself is evil, then why would we before God?
The reason given though seems strange: God is in heaven while you are on the earth.
What does that even mean? Aren’t we headed for heaven? Should we speak to God in a hasty manner when we show up on His celestial shores?
Of course not. First, remember at the end of chapter 3 when Solomon told us we may not go to heaven? You’ve got to remember, the whole story wasn’t revealed to him yet.
That wasn’t a guarantee for Solomon. He may be speaking in the sense that you will never exist there, but in the Jewish afterlife known as Sheol.
More to our purposes and knowledge, this verse speaks to our nature. You are by nature a creature of the earth. God, by our best knowledge, is by His nature that of the Ruler of Heaven.
Even standing at the pearly gates, this will be true. Your starting point began in terrestrial suffering, not angelic bliss.
Does standing on a mountain give you a better view? Does peering down from the clouds give you the lay of the land?
Then perhaps it’s best to listen to God before we speak unfortunate, angry words. The valleys keep us from seeing that which is beyond the hills.
No height or depth can withhold His gaze. To know this is to experience awe.
Awe steals our speech; live in awe.
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