1Samuel 16:7: “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for [the LORD seeth] not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”
With very few exceptions every modern translation I read this passage in says the very same thing, man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. This is a very understandable passage, who needs to look any further into the this passage or examine this passage in the original language, what can be more true than the fact that we all look on the outward appearance and make our judgments from that only God looks on the heart.
Wait a minute, I think I try to look at the heart, and so do you. Come on let’s give us poor slobs a break we are not all that bad. Maybe this verse is not as clear cut as we think. Let me give you an example. One of my co-workers, another bus driver, is about as unlikely to be a bus driver for the elderly and disabled as I am. I mean I am a published writer with a PhD and a college teaching background driving a bus, it probably looks like I am gather material for a book. Well, actually I guess I am. That book should be available in a couple months. Ok I was just trying to find a way to stick in a commercial, back to my study.
Let me tell you about my co-worker Santos. Santos has quite a colorful history. He is 64 years old, a former hippy, biker, radio host and poet. Yes, poet. He has a book of poems and used to read his poems at a bikers bar causing those sentimental bikers to put down their beers, chains, cigarettes and wipe the tears away from their eyes with their tattooed arms. Santos even appeared on the Letterman Show as the Biker Poet. He only lasted a few weeks as a radio host as his biker language was not compatible with the station’s censorship rules. Even in his sixties he still has the heart of a biker spending his vacation time to go on a motor cross with a couple hundred bikers to Montana or some desert state like that for a biker’s convention. This is no wanna be, this guy is the genuine article leather vest, bald head with the remaining hairs on the side grown full length and pulled into a pony tail.
This is one guy that I would not go to for driving directions. “Oh, yeah just go down Wanaka Ave. (a street so narrow you’re lucky to get a car through without taking out a few side view mirrors let alone a bus) to Garfield (six lane, no traffic light, 50 mph limit and always busy like rush hour) cross over to the other side and then keep going…” “Wait a minute,” I interrupt, “Cross over, like through six lanes of heavy traffic going 50 mph?” Unflustered Santos just says, “Yeah and if you make it across…”
I mean with his seniority Santos has the opportunity to drive one of the brand new buses that is muffler quiet with state of the art suspension that makes going over a railroad track at 50 mph seem like running over a twig. Instead he wants to drive S2. When we have buses with numbers like S32 you get an idea how old this bus is. Santos personally rescued this bus from the town maintenance department using it to haul junk. The bus makes running over a twig at 15 mph seem like you are going over a railroad track at 50 mph. The muffler has long ago been left on the side of the road of Ogden Ave and picked up by a bum with a shopping cart. The horn does not work but that is ok as everyone for a block radius knows Santos and his Town Bus have arrived. When they hear the bada boom bada bing everyone comes to the door wondering if the rapture occurred. No horn is needed for the person who he is to pick up for he or she can hear him two blocks away and has plenty of time to get ready. That person had better be because if Santos and his noisy bus has to wait for his passenger to come out in a bus noisy enough to wake the dead for the resurrection, frustrated neighbors with ear plugs will personally drag the passenger out of his house so Santos can drive off and give the neighborhood peace and quiet. About have no horn, Santos did confess that he was uncomfortable without a horn. Of course he would be, given the choice of brakes or a horn he would choose the horn without a moments hesitation.
Well, you have to get my book to learn more about Santos and the other people of our good town who will teach you some Hebrew word studies, but I need to get to our word study for today. I have given you an idea of the outward appearance of Santos. So do we really know or can we know what Santo’s heart is like? He is a poet and a biker who drives a disability bus when he could easily retire and drive his Harley Davidson off into the sunset. Why does he drive a bus for the elderly and disabled? I do not know.
You know, we can try to look on the heart of Santos and make a guess. But only God can really know his heart. Only God really knows why Santos will pick up an elderly lady who is too sick and weak to make it to his bus to go to her dialysis and gently carry her onto his bus. Only God knows the heart of someone who will on his own time go out of his way to make sure an elderly or disabled person has a way home when a doctor’s appointment extends beyond working hours.
Man looks on the outward appearance. Outward appearance in Hebrew is the word ra’ah which is used as a noun. It is literally read as, We look at the seeing. In others words we look at only what we can see. Ra’ah is a seeing that is both physically and spiritually. So we can see what a person looks like, and we can see something of their spirit from the actions and talk. Most of us do judge a person by more than just his physical appearance, but we are limited in what we can see beyond the physical, we can only guess. This is not an indictment against man for just looking at the physical, it is just a statement of fact that we cannot see everything that God sees. For God does not ra’ah like we ra’ah. The Lord is able to ra’ah the heart. You may notice a cute play on the word ra’ah in this passage. The Lord sees everything we see and more. It is curious that the word heart in Hebrew here is lalebab. I have never seen this before, the word heart with two Lameds and two Beths. Normally, the word heart has one Lamed and one Beth. Sure there is a grammatical reason for the second Lamed as it is a preposition and there is a grammatical reason for the second Beth, of which I am not sure although the triliteral root has two Beths. The ancient rabbis point out an esoteric reason for the double Lamed and Beths. They say that it indicates that man looks on what he can see but only God can see when someone has allowed his heart to join with God’s heart, two Lameds man and God joined together and two Beths joined together in heart.
There is a lot of good in Santos but is his heart joined with God’s? No one can know, only he and God can answer that question. I believe when we get to heaven we are going to be very surprised at who else is up there and equally surprised as to who is not. We are very quick to make out judgments from what we ra’ah, Our job is to just present God’s plan of salvation to a lost world, what they do with it is between them and God. If their response does not fit our personal theology, our personal life style and our personal frame of reference and we stand in judgment of them then, well you know what? Shame on you, shame on me and shame on your mama. Only God can see what is in the heart of man.
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