SEEING AND SIN

If you look at an analytical concordance of the Bible and turn to the word “see,” you may find yourself amazed at the number of times the word appears. Many of these occurrences, of course, refer to physical sight, but even some of those contain spiritual overtones. “Sight belongs to the common stock of spiritual imagery, perhaps because of its obvious connection to light.” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery) I think that the best biblical passage illustrating this fact is found in John 9:1-41, where a blind man is healed by Jesus and not only has his physical sight restored but also slowly begins to “see” who Jesus really is. But at the same time, enemies of Jesus refuse to accept the evidence of their own eyes and become progressively more recalcitrant toward His message.

This introduces the specific subject of this short post – the relationship between the physical act of seeing and subsequent sin that can result from it. This theme is so pervasive in the Bible, that the pattern for subsequent examples is well established in the first six books of the Old Testament. Thus, for convenience sake, I will concentrate on examples from the Hexateuch.

The pattern begins in Genesis 3:6. We think in terms of the serpent's words as luring Eve into temptation, and they certainly had something to do with it. However, this verse says in part, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to to the eyes...she took of its fruit and ate.” Parenthetically, this is almost a parody of the refrain in Genesis 1:4, etc. in which “God saw that it was good.” Eve's actions set the stage for a host of other examples in which the organ of sight becomes the instrument leading to coveting something that is ultimately not good instead.

Genesis 6:2 provides the next example of such a connection between sight and sin, this time of a specifically sexual nature. “[T[he sons of God saw that they [women] were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.” Whether this describes intermarriage between (a) sons of Cain and daughters of Seth's line, (b) powerful rulers taking wives by force, or (c) angels and human women, in any case it was of a forbidden nature.

We see the same sight-sin connection later on in II Samuel 11:2-4 – “David....saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful...So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him and he lay with her.” But getting back to the Hexateuch, there are still more examples of sexual sin brought about by seeing.

Genesis 12:5 represents an example of an inadvertent and unconsummated sin caused by seeing: “When the officials of Egypt saw her [Sarai], they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into his house.” Only when God visits plagues upon Pharaoh's house does he begin to suspect that there may be something that he has done wrong.

Genesis 38:15-16 – When Shechem...saw her [Dinah], he seized her and lay with her by force.

Genesis 38:15-16 – “When Judah saw her [his daughter-in-law Tamar],...he went over to her and said, 'Come, let me lie with you.” There was a subsequent law against a man uncovering and seeing “the nakedness” of a close relative. (Leviticus 20:17) However, that was not the case here since Judah didn't know who she was. His sin was in not giving her in marriage to his youngest son as he had promised, as well as his consorting with a prostitute.

Samson – Considering the highly developed sensual drives of the prophet Samson, it is not surprising that his wandering eye would get him into trouble. First, he almost gets himself captured by the Philistines when he sees a Philistine woman of Timnah and demands that his parents get her as a bride for him. (Judges 14:1-2) Later, he sees a swarm of bees in a lion's carcass and can't resist eating honey out of the comb, even though to do so causes him to become ritually unclean. And to compound the problem, he gives some of the honey to his parents to eat. (Judges 14:8-9) This demonstrates, as does the case of Eve and the fruit, that food can be a forbidden object as well as improper sexual encounters. Then again, he goes to Gaza, sees a prostitute, and lies with her, thus almost getting himself captured. And at last, with the help of Delilah, the Philistines capture him and appropriately blind him. Paradoxically, it is only in that physically sightless state that Samson turns away from the sin of coveting and toward the God who helps him in his need.

Unfortunately, Samson was not the only one during the time of judges who lived by his own desires and concerns. As it says in Judges 17:6 and 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

Returning to the theme of sight leading to sexual sin, there are also some variations. For example, after the Flood, Noah gets drunk and passes out. At that point, his son Ham “saw his father's nakedness” and is subsequently cursed for his action by Noah. (Genesis 9:22-25) This episode has been much discussed by Bible scholars, among whom there is the strong suspicion that something more serious than just viewing took place.

And before one gets the idea that it is only men who are led astray by their sexual desires, consider Genesis 39:7 in which the wife of Joseph's master casts he eyes on Joseph and says, “Lie with me.”

Then to round out the subject of sins of desire being brought on by seeing, In Genesis 13:10 Abram and Lot need to separate their growing flocks and so Abram gives Lot the first choice of pasture land. But instead of Lot being generous and taking the less favorable land, “Lot looked around him and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well-watered everywhere...so Lot chose it for himself.” Of course, that will prove to be an unfortunate decision since it brought Lot and his family into direct contact with the unsavory inhabitants of Sodom.

Other types of possession can be a stumbling block to those who gaze on them. Just look at Achan, who took some of the treasures from Jericho when it had been strictly forbidden by God. (Joshua 7:21) Even spiritual treasures can be an object of coveting, as demonstrated by the NT example of the Simon the magician. “Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying of the apostles' hands, he offered them money saying, 'Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 8:18)

The bottom line is expressed best by James (in 1:14): “But one is tempted by his own desire, lured and enticed by it.”

But the above does not nearly exhaust this theme in the Hexateuch because there are two other unusual ways in which sight leads to sin. The first is illustrated by Pharaoh, who repeatedly witnesses horrific plagues on his land and then promises Moses that his people can leave.

    “But then Pharaoh saw that there was a respite [in the plague], he hardened his heart...” (Exodus 8:15)

    “But when Pharaoh saw that the rain, hail and thunder had ceased, he sinned once more and hardened his heart.” (Exodus 9:34)

Interestingly, in this case it was not what Pharaoh saw, but what he no longer saw, that caused him to sin. The same was paradoxically the case for the Israelites themselves when, as it says in Exodus 32:1, “the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said, 'Come, let us make gods for ourselves...'” In both cases, the people take an absence of visible evidence to be evidence for absolute absence, thus discounting God's threats in the case of Pharaoh and God's promises in the case of the Israelites.

Finally, there is the sad example of the spies who scout out the land of Canaan. They actually see something but it causes them to exaggerate the dangers they can see and discounting the promises of the invisible God. (Numbers 13-14) This also points to the fact that the sin caused by what one person or a few people see can lead a large number of people to sin also.