Hard and tender hearts.

Heart hɑrt s. The immaterial center of a person’s life-force. Used in the scriptures for one’s personality, will, intellect, memory, and feelings.

The ancients believed the heart was the center of one’s intellect.

If your mind was open to new experiences, new knowledge, new wisdom; if it was humble, changeable, or even repentant because you realized you were going astray; or if you just plain lost your resolve and didn’t know what you believed about anything anymore, this’d be what the ancients called a tender heart. Or one of the other words we use to translate rakákh/“tender”—soft, repentant, changeable, faint, or even fearful.

On the other hand, if your mind was made up, and nothing could move you further, this’d be a hard heart. Or one of the other words for khazáq/“hard”—in the positive sense, strong, courageous, holding fast, strengthening; in the negative sense, hardened or tough.

It’s not about emotions.

Christians nowadays will make the mistake of confusing “hard heart” with someone who’s unfeeling, who can’t be swayed by appeals to their emotions, who are neither compassionate nor sympathetic. When they read of the pharaoh of the Exodus hardening his heart towards Moses and the Hebrews, Ex 8.19 they assume it’s because the pharaoh was merciless, pitiless, inhumane, uncaring.

To be fair he may have been those things. But if so, the ancients wouldn’t have described him as hard-hearted. As I said, the heart was the center of the intellect. The guts were the center of emotion.

The me’é/“belly,” or stomach, bowels, womb, innards—they churned when a person was in emotional distress, Lm 1.20 they moaned when people were in mourning, Is 16.11 they were thrilled when people were in love. Sg 5.4 When Jesus was moved with compassion, Mt 9.36, 14.14, 15.32, 20.34 the word the gospel authors used was splangkhídzomai/“he was gutted.”

Emotions didn’t became a heart thing till the middle ages, when people finally figured out the brain was the center of intellect. Once popular culture moved intellect to the brain, it moved emotions to the heart. Problem is, now plenty of people will misinterpret every case where the ancients refer to the heart, and assume they meant what we mean—that it has to do with emotion.

And present-day translations of the bible won’t help. The word me’é tends to be translated “bowels” when it’s referring to literal bowels, but when it’s referring to emotion, translators tend to make it “heart.” Then they translate lev/“heart” as “heart” as well. So, unless you’re regularly double-checking with the original Hebrew (or, in a pinch, the King James Version), you can’t tell whether “heart” in many translations refers to intellect or emotions.

But when the scriptures are talking about the lev/“heart,” they mean intellect. And no, they never talk about hard bowels—every “hard heart” (or “fat heart”) in our English translations means a closed mind, and every “tender heart” means an open one.

Hard isn’t always bad.

As I said, a “hard heart” can have a positive sense, or a negative one. A hard heart isn’t always a bad thing.

For the LORD’s eyes travel throughout the land,

to make hard, in heart, everyone who’s with him.

—Hanani, 2 Chronicles 16.7 KWL

King David certainly had no trouble with the idea.

Join the LORD!

Be hard! Be strong in your heart!

Join the LORD!

—David, Psalm 27.14 KWL

Be hard!

Be strong in your hearts, all who wait for the LORD!

—David, Psalm 31.24 KWL

Say to the hasty in heart, “Be hard! Don’t fear!

Look, your God comes to avenge you.

God’s reward comes to save you.”

—David, Psalm 35.4 KWL

A hard, strong heart—a hard, strong mind—is a valuable thing when you’re facing down the challenges of the devil and its unwitting followers. Sometimes it’s just not wise to have an open mind. Namely, when someone’s trying to mess with your mind, confuse you, trick you, deceive you, lead you astray. Don’t open your mind to untrustworthy, evil people. Harden it.

But when it’s God trying to instruct you, by all means open it. That’s always been the problem with people—whether it’s the Hebrews way back when, or Christians today: We open and close our minds at the wrong time. We figure we have God all figured out, so we won’t receive anything new from him. Or we’ll be too busy sinning to listen. And that’s the sort of hard-heartedness God rebukes in the scriptures.

“Israel’s house isn’t willing to listen to you,

’cause none of them are willing to listen to me,

’cause Israel’s whole house has a hard forehead.

They have a dense heart.”

—The LORD, Ezekiel 3.7 KWL

Like a mouth, a mind is meant to be opened from time to time, when there’s something nourishing to put in it. Our problem is we’ll keep it closed, like a baby who won’t eat her strained peas, when it really ought to be open.

Hard hearts and alienation.

Another popular misconception is that people’s hearts are hard because they’re sinning. As I showed you with the Psalms quotes, that’s not always true. David commanded his people to harden their hearts in favor of the LORD. Yet there are plenty of Christians who’ve skipped those psalms, and teach every instance of hard-heartedness is a bad thing—is sin.

Certainly hard-heartedness can be the result of sin. But in my experience, it’s more often because of comfort or complacency. We get a certain way, or we develop certain habits, and don’t care to change them. We like those things about ourselves. And it’s much easier to keep doing as we always have, believing as we’ve always believed. Some folks will even take pride in it—“This is who I am, and I change for no one.”

Now, you can point out to such people there oughta be room in their lives for God to insist upon changes. And some of them will indeed say, “Well of course I make room for God. He gets a say in how I live my life. But only him. No one else does!” And when they get kind of insistent about changing for no one but God, it usually means they don’t change for God either. Because God regularly uses other people to point out our need for change: We have to change to accommodate them, to show them love and compassion and generosity. Well, if we change for no one but God, we’re not gonna change for them—and therefore, not gonna change for God. And that was the sort of hard-hearted behavior God had to rebuke in the ancient Hebrews: People who would worship God plenty, but be just awful towards their fellow Hebrews. Is 6.11-17

The result would be sin, but the cause would be an unwillingness for anyone but God to influence them. In other words, autonomy. Reliance on no one but themselves. Separation from outside influences. The libertarian “live and let live” spirit—emphasis on “let me live.” It’s not a healthy attitude, for God commands us to love one another, and you can’t do that when you’ve divorced yourself from the rest of humanity. It’s safer, and easier on the emotions—but it’s not wise, and not Christlike.

Closed-mindedness should be reserved for fighting evil. But never should it be used to escape doing good. Let others in. Minister to them, and let them minister to you, and seek God together.