Day 14: God Tests What You Cannot Reach
Read: Psalm 7:6–11
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous— you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!
— Psalm 7:9 (ESV)
Reflect
Our English Bibles say God tests "the minds and hearts." That is a fair translation. But the Hebrew is more earthy. It says God tests the hearts and the kidneys.
The word is kelayot, "kidneys." For the Hebrews, the kidneys stood for the deepest, least reachable part of a person. Conscience. Hidden desire. The inner voice that works on you at night. One psalm says, literally, "my kidneys instruct me" in the night (Psalm 16:7). It is the part of you that you cannot easily inspect, even when you try.
And God is described as the one who keeps on testing it. Not once, but continually. The picture is of someone testing metals, looking past the surface to see what is really there.
That could sound frightening. Nothing in you is hidden from him. Every motive, every mixed desire, every secret you have not even admitted to yourself.
But read it first as rest. The Judge already knows everything about you, and he has not left. He is not discovering anything that will make him walk away. He sees what you cannot see in yourself, and he is still the "righteous God" you can pray to.
He tests hearts and kidneys. You do not have to dig down there alone.
Across Scripture
Jeremiah says the same thing: "I the LORD search the heart and test the mind" (Jeremiah 17:10; see also 11:20). In the book of Revelation, the risen Christ says, "I am he who searches mind and heart" (Revelation 2:23), and the Greek word for "mind" there is actually the word for kidneys. He is the righteous God of Psalm 7.
Sit With It
Nothing in you is unknown to him. Can you read that as rest before you read it as threat? The Judge already knows everything, and he has not left.
Pray
Search what I cannot see in myself.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.