Get truth, and do not sell it, wisdom, reproof, and discernment.  Proverbs 23:23 Robert Alter

Get truth – Perhaps you’re more familiar with a different translation: “Buy truth, and do not sell it.”  The verb is qānâ, “to get, acquire, create,” but since the complementary is “sell,” translators adopt the idea of “buy,”  particularly when a commercial translation is in play where qānâ is the typical verb.  Whichever you prefer, the idea is that this is going to cost you something.  Truth doesn’t come free.  It might not involve money, but it will certainly involve blood, sweat, and tears.  Why?  Well, Abraham Heschel clarifies:

“Truth is not a feeling, a mere thought.  Truth confronts us as a behest, an insistent summons, austere, uncompromising.  Are we able to respond to it in the recesses of our souls?”[1]

“Truth is severe, harsh, demanding.  We would rather hide our face in the sand than be confronted by it.  ‘To live means to be indebted’—who wants to hear this?  ‘I am commanded, therefore I am’—who knows how to cherish it?”[2]

“To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people, whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion, and mutual accommodation.  Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?”[3]

“Some people preach continuously and complain about the deceitfulness of others.  Yet truthfulness does not prevail in their own lives either.  According to Proverbs (23:23), ‘Buy truth, and do not sell it,’ and as the Kotzer said, ‘Acquire Truth for your own consumption, not for export.’”[4]

“Falsehood is a refuge, an asylum for the cruel, the violent, for consummate criminals.  What begins in a lie ends in blasphemy.”[5]

It’s possible that Proverbs 23:23 will become my favorite verse, not because it’s so insightful but because it’s so confrontational.  It makes me squirm.  How much of my own self-interest prevents me from confronting reality?  How many times have I turned away because God’s word was so demanding?  How often have I deferred rather than repented?  How close am I to seeking refuge in a lie (that I tell myself)?  Am I not on the pathway toward blasphemy every time I feel the spirit of God prodding me to confront my own desires instead of walking the other way?  Could I really emulate Abraham and go out from myself or am I not a coward, retreating into my own fantasy world that coddles and soothes my fractured self?

Heschel doesn’t let me off the hook.  He and Søren drive the stake deeper.

The truth, [wrote Kierkegaard] consists not in knowing the truth but in being the truth . . . Knowing the truth is something which follows as a matter of course from being  the truth, and not conversely; and precisely for the reason it becomes untruth when knowing the truth is separated from being the truth, or when knowing the truth is treated as one and the same thing as being the truth, since the true relation is the converse: to be the truth is one and the same thing as knowing the truth.[6]

Is that me?  Am I being the Truth?  If I were, would I still feel this great disconnect between my self and my soul?

“Kierkegaard says, ‘Truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught.  You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.’”[7]  I wonder if all my efforts aren’t just ways of avoiding the hook.

Topical Index: Truth, Kierkegaard, Heschel, Proverbs 23:23