Reading

Reading appears in scripture both as a household-level discipline — the inscribed words a household passes on its doorposts and gates — and as a public act in which a written text is read aloud to a king, to a crowd, or to passers-by. The verses gathered under this umbrella sketch each side of that picture.

Words on Doorposts and Gates

The Deuteronomy commands fix the words of Yahweh in writing where the family will daily encounter them. Twice the same instruction is given: "And you will write them on the door-posts of your house, and on your gates" (De 6:9), and again "And you will write them on the door-posts of your house, and on your gates" (De 11:20). The act of inscribing is for the sake of being read — a household's continual rehearsal of what it has been taught.

Reading What Is Written to a King

When Belshazzar's wall is inscribed by the hand and his wise men cannot read it, Daniel's response distinguishes the prophet from the rewards being offered: "Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another; nevertheless I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation" (Da 5:17). Reading the writing and interpreting it stand as a single prophetic service — the text is unintelligible without both.

A Public Inscription Read by Many

At the cross, Pilate's title is fixed where it can be read by passers-by, and it is read: "This title therefore read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near to the city; and it was written in Hebrew, [and] in Latin, [and] in Greek" (Joh 19:20). The trilingual inscription is calibrated to the population that passes; reading is the response the placement was designed to produce.

The Weariness of Much Study

Ecclesiastes warns that the proliferation of writing has its own cost on the reader: "And furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh" (Ec 12:12). The verse names the side of reading that is labor — extended study taxes the body, and the supply of books outruns any reader's strength.