Dumb (Deafness, Mute) - UPDV Updated Bible Version

Deafness and muteness in the UPDV are treated together: the same hand that forms the speaking mouth forms the silent one, the same Yahweh who shuts the ear opens it. The literal condition is protected by the Law, traced back to God as its origin, promised reversal in the prophets, and given that reversal in the ministry of Jesus. Around the literal condition runs a parallel figurative track — the ear that hears but does not listen, the people whose hearing has grown heavy — so that "the deaf" names both a person to be guarded and a heart to be feared.

Protection for the deaf

The Law forbids exploitation of the very deafness it does not cure: "You will not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind; but you will fear your God: I am Yahweh" (Lev 19:14). The deaf person who cannot hear the curse, like the blind person who cannot see the obstacle, is doubly under Yahweh's protection — the prohibition is sealed not with a penalty but with the divine name.

Old age brings its own deafening. Barzillai, declining David's invitation to court, marks the loss of hearing as one of the signs that the time for service has passed: "I am this day 80 years old: can I discern between good and bad? Can your slave taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear anymore the voice of singing men and singing women?" (2 Sam 19:35). Ecclesiastes pictures the same diminishment as a feature of the failing body — "the doors will be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one will rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music will be brought low" (Ecc 12:4).

The God who makes mouth and ear

Speech and silence are both Yahweh's making. When Moses pleads inability at the burning bush, the answer fixes the question at its source: "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes [man] mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?" (Ex 4:11). The verse will not let muteness or deafness be filed away as accident or as an absence God merely permits — they are made, by name, by Yahweh.

The same God who makes the ear hears with one. "He who planted the ear, will he not hear? He who formed the eye, will he not see?" (Ps 94:9). Yahweh's hearing is a perpetual posture toward the righteous: "The eyes of Yahweh are toward the righteous, And his ears are [open] to their cry" (Ps 34:15); "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And his ears to their supplication" (1 Pet 3:12). David's deliverance song builds on the same image: "In my distress I called on Yahweh; Yes, I called to my God: And he heard my voice out of his temple, And my cry [came] into his ears" (2 Sam 22:7). The cry of defrauded harvesters is heard the same way — "the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of Yahweh of hosts" (Jas 5:4).

When the people fear they have not been heard, the prophet rules out the failure on Yahweh's side: "Look, Yahweh's hand is not shortened, that it can't save; neither his ear heavy, that it can't hear" (Isa 59:1). The promise extends past hearing into anticipation: "before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isa 65:24).

The promised reversal

Within prophecy, deafness is one of the disabilities the coming day will undo. "And in that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind will see out of obscurity and out of darkness" (Isa 29:18). The Isaiah 35 vision repeats it as a paired promise: "Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped" (Isa 35:5). Hearing returns not as bare physical capacity but as the capacity to receive "the words of the book" — the reversal is one of access to revelation as much as of biology.

Jesus opens the deaf, looses the mute

Mark stages both halves of the prophetic reversal. In the Decapolis, "they bring to him one who was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they urge him to lay his hand on him" (Mark 7:32). After the healing, the crowd's astonishment lands on exactly the Isaianic language: "He has done all things well; he makes even the deaf to hear, and the mute to speak" (Mark 7:37).

The mute spirit at the foot of the mountain of transfiguration brings the same pairing into contact with exorcism. The boy's father describes the affliction in those terms: "Teacher, I brought to you my son, who has a mute spirit" (Mark 9:17). Jesus addresses the spirit by the same name, charging it never to return: "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and enter into him no more" (Mark 9:25). The expulsion is violent and the boy is left as if dead — "And having cried out, and torn him much, he came out: and [the boy] became as one dead; insomuch that most said, He is dead" (Mark 9:26) — but the muteness goes with the spirit.

The deafness that is not in the ear

Alongside the literal condition runs a figurative deafness that is more dangerous because it has no organ to repair. Isaiah's commission inverts the prophetic reversal: "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; or else they will see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed" (Isa 6:10). John picks up the same hardening logic — "He has blinded their eyes, and he hardened their heart; Lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, And should turn, And I should heal them" (John 12:40).

Ezekiel names the diagnosis directly: "Son of Man, you dwell in the midst of the rebellious house, that have eyes to see, and don't see, that have ears to hear, and don't hear; for they are a rebellious house" (Ezek 12:2). Jeremiah finds the same closure when he tries to speak: "To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? Look, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot listen: look, the word of Yahweh has become to them a reproach; they have no delight in it" (Jer 6:10). Zechariah rehearses the gesture — "But they refused to listen, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear" (Zech 7:11). It is hearing aestheticized but never obeyed: "you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a beautiful voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don't do them" (Ezek 33:32). Abraham's verdict in the parable matches it: "If they don't hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one would rise from the dead" (Luke 16:31).

In the New Testament epistles the same drift takes a softer name — turning the ear away — but the result is the same: "they will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside to fables" (2 Tim 4:4).

Hearing as the discipline of the wise

If figurative deafness is the danger, hearing — really hearing — is the wisdom that answers it. Habakkuk's response to the report of Yahweh's coming work is the model: "O Yahweh, I have heard the report of you, and am afraid: O Yahweh, revive your work in the midst of the years; In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy" (Hab 3:2).

Wisdom presents herself as one whose listeners are blessed: "Blessed is [the] man who hears me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors" (Prov 8:34). Reproof received is a place among the wise — "The ear that harkens to the reproof of life Will reside among the wise" (Prov 15:31). Worship begins with the open ear: "Keep your foot when you go to the house of God; for to draw near to hear is better than to give the sacrifice of fools" (Ecc 5:1).

Sirach concentrates the counsel into a posture: "Be swift to give ear, And in patience of spirit return an answer" (Sir 5:11); "If you will bring yourself to hear, And incline your ear, you will be instructed" (Sir 6:33); "Be pleased to hear all talk; And do not let a proverb of understanding get away from you" (Sir 6:35). James echoes the cadence into the assembly: "let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath" (Jas 1:19), and warns against the hearing that goes nowhere — "if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror: for he looks at himself, and goes away, and right away forgets what manner of man he was" (Jas 1:23-24). Luke's seed-on-good-ground describes the destination: "in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience" (Luke 8:15).