Be Still and Know
The Teaching
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
From the Hebrew: “Harpu” — translated “be still” — more literally means to let go, to release, to slacken, to cease striving. It is the active release of grasping, not merely physical stillness.
Commentary
Harpu, the Hebrew word translated ‘be still’, is more precisely ‘release,’ ‘let go,’ ‘cease grasping.’ It is the direct Hebrew equivalent of Wu Wei: not passive quietude but the active release of the ego’s insistence.
This one word connects the Psalm to the entire contemplative tradition. The Taoist ‘returning to the root’ requires exactly this letting go. The Gita’s surrender in 18:66 is this same release. The Stoic practice of releasing what is not ‘up to us’ is this same harpu.
Shinto’s Misogi, ritual purification, is also a practice of release: letting go of accumulated anxieties and ego-identifications to return to the pure state of Kannagara. All traditions share this one practice beneath their different forms.
Themes
Connections 8
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Taoism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Shinto while these teachings took shape.
Unsure
Judaism and Stoicism were in contact, but no influence of Judaism on Stoicism is documented. Stoic ideas appear in the Wisdom of Solomon (1st c. BCE) and 4 Maccabees, and Philo of Alexandria used the Stoic Logos.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Buddhism and Judaism while these teachings took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Judaism and Sikhism while these teachings took shape.