Earlier this week we looked at a text from Ezekiel 28, discussing God as a “jealous” God who doesn’t take kindly to idol worshippers (Ezekiel 28:2). The verse that follows is just as interesting in giving us a better understanding of the Lord. Listen to what God says to the prideful, idolatrous, rulers of Tyre…
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
(Ezekiel 28:3)
Uh oh. It’s never good when God starts speaking sarcastically. I know some translations render this verse as a rhetorical question: “Are you wiser than Daniel?” But it’s not written that way in the Hebrew. In the original text it is simply: “See Look! you (are) wise as Daniel.” It’s properly translated in the old King James; God is saying this sarcastically, or maybe ironically, taking Tyre’s boast and throwing it back in their face: “Oh yeah, you’re a god, Tyre, and your mind is like the mind of a god. Sure. Yeah, you’re sooo wise, wiser than Daniel! Sure, and there’s no secret that can be hidden from you, too, right?”
But hang on, in the midst of that sarcastic rebuke, we learn a little something about the way God sees Himself. Keep in mind that in this verse he’s mocking the idea that Tyre thinks they’re a god (they say that in the previous verse), so naturally God’s response will give us some insight into what the real God thinks about being God.
Note how God equates divine knowledge with knowing secrets: He says “you are wiser than Daniel” and then, right after, adds “there is no secret they can hide from you.” To God, being wise isn’t enough. Anyone can be wise. DIVINE wisdom is something else entirely. Divine wisdom means “knowing secrets.” A secret is the one thing that a person can not study and naturally learn. You can read in a book or sit in a lecture and learn everything that those books or those teachers tell you, but you can’t learn anything that a teacher or a book doesn’t say.
You know everything I tell you but you can’t know anything I don’t tell you.
Here I’ll prove it: Did you know that President William Henry Harrison died only a month after taking office? If you didn’t go ahead and google it to confirm it’s true. I’ll wait.
There, see? It’s true. If you didn’t know that before, you do now, and the reason you do is because I told you. Now let’s flip the script…
I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 17. What is it? You don’t know. You can guess, and with only 17 guesses you will eventually land on it but didn’t know it. You can’t know it because I haven’t said it. The only other Being in the Universe that knew the number I was thinking is God. Someone might say they are a god. Okay, tell me what I’m going to have for lunch later today. Who knows?
“God knows.”
And here’s what’s even crazier: I don’t even know what I’m having for lunch today, yet God does!
Everything outside of the mind, that is to say everything that exists in this physical world (including words that we speak or write that can be physically heard or read) can be learned. It might be hard, or even presently impossible, but such knowledge could potentially, eventually, be attained.
God, however, knows not only every word ever written or spoken, but He knows every thought ever conceived, the thoughts which have never been expressed in any form. “The secret things belong to the Lord,” Moses once said (Deuteronomy 29:29), but that doesn’t just mean God knows things we don’t. It also means exactly what it says:
God knows your every secret, and that’s an awe-inspiring thing to think about.
~ Matthew