Wisdom 17:1-16: a reflection

1For your judgments are great, and hard to interpret; therefore undisciplined souls went astray. 2For when lawless men had supposed that they held a holy nation in their power, they, prisoners of darkness, and bound in the fetters of a long night, kept close beneath their roofs, lay exiled from the eternal providence. 3For while they thought that they were unseen in their secret sins, they were divided from one another by a dark curtain of forgetfulness, stricken with terrible awe, and very troubled by apparitions. 4For neither did the dark recesses that held them guard them from fears, but terrifying sounds rang around them, and dismal phantoms appeared with unsmiling faces. 5And no power of fire prevailed to give light, neither were the brightest flames of the stars strong enough to illuminate that gloomy night; 6but only the glimmering of a self-kindled fire appeared to them, full of fear. In terror, they considered the things which they saw to be worse than that sight, on which they could not gaze. 7The mockeries of their magic arts were powerless, now, and a shameful rebuke of their boasted understanding: 8For those who promised to drive away terrors and disorders from a sick soul, these were sick with a ludicrous fearfulness. 9For even if no troubling thing frighted them, yet, scared with the creeping of vermin and hissing of serpents, 10they perished trembling in fear, refusing even to look at the air, which could not be escaped on any side. 11For wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing, and, being pressed hard by conscience, always has added forecasts of the worst. 12For fear is nothing else but a surrender of the help which reason offers; 13and from within, the expectation of being less prefers ignorance of the cause that brings the torment. 14But they, all through the night which was powerless indeed, and which came upon them out of the recesses of powerless Hades, sleeping the same sleep, 15now were haunted by monstrous apparitions, and now were paralyzed by their soul’s surrendering; for sudden and unexpected fear came upon them. 16So then whoever it might be, sinking down in his place, was kept captive, shut up in that prison which was not barred with iron;

In a meditation on the plague of darkness that fell on Egypt, the book of Wisdom observes something about the torment of a guilty conscience: it fills the guilty with fear. Those held in the darkness were terrified, haunted by phantoms and frightened by every sound, not because of any real danger, but because, as the writer says, wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing, and, being pressed hard by conscience, always has added forecasts of the worst. Their guilty consciences tormented them, filling them with fears; the witness within condemned them, and their own guilt made them afraid. A guilty conscience is a hard master; it torments with fear, magnifying every shadow, forecasting the worst, giving the guilty no peace. Guilt unaddressed becomes a source of inner torment and fear; the conscience that condemns us fills us with dread.

Notice what the writer sees in the terror of the guilty: a conscience that torments with fear. Their fear did not come from real dangers but from within, from guilty consciences that condemned them and filled them with dread. Wickedness, he says, condemned by the witness within, is a coward thing; pressed by conscience, it always forecasts the worst. A guilty conscience gives no peace; it torments with fear, magnifies every shadow, imagines the worst, robs the guilty of rest. This is one of the burdens of unaddressed guilt: it becomes an inner tormentor, filling us with fears that our own conscience breeds. The remedy is not to silence the conscience but to deal with the guilt that troubles it, to seek the forgiveness that quiets the accusing witness within and gives peace. A conscience at peace, its guilt forgiven, is freed from the fears that guilt breeds. The way out of the torment is not to numb the conscience but to have the guilt removed.

That is worth taking to heart, for a guilty conscience torments us with fear, and the remedy is to have our guilt forgiven. We can carry unaddressed guilt, and find it becomes an inner tormentor, filling us with fears, robbing us of peace, as the guilty in the darkness were tormented by the witness within. A guilty conscience gives no rest; it magnifies fears and forecasts the worst. But the remedy is not to numb the conscience; it is to deal with the guilt, to seek the forgiveness that quiets the accusing witness and gives peace. Do not carry unaddressed guilt that torments you with fear; seek the forgiveness that quiets the conscience and gives peace. Seek to have your guilt forgiven, which quiets the conscience that torments with fear, rather than carrying unaddressed guilt, as the guilty in Egypt's darkness were tormented by the witness within, pressed by conscience to forecast the worst; for a guilty conscience is a hard master that fills us with fear and gives no peace, and the way out of its torment is not to numb the conscience but to have the guilt removed through forgiveness, so that the accusing witness within is quieted and the heart is given peace.

Lord, in a meditation on the plague of darkness that fell on Egypt, the book of Wisdom observes something about the torment of a guilty conscience: it fills the guilty with fear. Those held in the darkness were terrified, haunted by phantoms and frightened by every sound, not because of any real danger, but because, as the writer says, wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a coward thing, and, being pressed hard by conscience, always has added forecasts of the worst. Their guilty consciences tormented them, filling them with fears; the witness within condemned them. A guilty conscience is a hard master; it torments with fear and gives the guilty no peace. Show me what the writer sees in the terror of the guilty: a conscience that torments with fear. Their fear did not come from real dangers but from within, from guilty consciences that condemned them. A guilty conscience gives no peace; it torments with fear, magnifies every shadow, imagines the worst. This is one of the burdens of unaddressed guilt: it becomes an inner tormentor. The remedy is not to silence the conscience but to deal with the guilt that troubles it, to seek the forgiveness that quiets the accusing witness within. Take that to my heart, for a guilty conscience torments me with fear, and the remedy is to have my guilt forgiven. I can carry unaddressed guilt, and find it becomes an inner tormentor, filling me with fears, robbing me of peace. A guilty conscience gives no rest. But the remedy is not to numb the conscience; it is to deal with the guilt, to seek the forgiveness that quiets the accusing witness and gives peace. Keep me from carrying unaddressed guilt that torments me with fear; help me seek the forgiveness that quiets the conscience and gives peace, Lord, that the accusing witness within may be silenced and my heart given rest.