Do You Hear What I Hear? Chapter 1

by Carlo Griseta | Aug 18, 2026 | Do You Hear What I Hear? | 0 comments

The Sound of God

Genesis 3:8 is usually translated:

“They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the

day…

”

The Hebrew language is fascinating… the word translated

“sound”

is qol (קוֹל). It

can mean sound, voice, noise, thunder, or proclamation, depending upon its

context.

So Adam and Eve hear the qol of YHWH God moving through the garden, not

necessarily footsteps, not necessarily a voice speaking words. Simply—the sound

of His Presence.

The phrase traditionally translated “in the cool of the day

”

also contains the

Hebrew word ruach (ַרוּח), a word that can mean wind, breath, or spirit. In this

expression,

“

wind”

“breeze

” is probably the most natural meaning, but the

larger biblical resonance is difficult to miss: Breath… Wind… Sound… Presence.

Genesis gives us an almost sensory picture:

The sound of YHWH moving through the garden in the wind of the day.

What If God’s Sound Was Never Merely Footsteps?

We tend to imagine Genesis anthropomorphically:

Crunch… crunch… crunch… God walking through fallen leaves, perhaps, but what

if this language is also humanity’s attempt to describe The Presence becoming

perceptible?

Throughout Scripture, encounters with God repeatedly contain sound:

At Sinai there is thunder, trumpet, and voice.

Elijah encounters wind, earthquake, and fire, followed by the mysterious qol

demamah daqqah—traditionally translated “

a still small voice,

” though it may

convey something more like a thin silence, a gentle whisper, or the sound of sheer

stillness.Ezekiel describes divine manifestations with sounds like rushing waters.

Psalm 29 transforms

“the voice of the LORD” into almost cosmic music:

The V oice moves over the waters.

The V oice breaks cedars.

The V oice shakes the wilderness.

The V oice causes creation to tremble.

At Pentecost, Presence arrives with

“

a sound like the blowing of a violent wind.

”

Revelation repeatedly describes divine realities through waters, thunder, trumpets,

harps, voices, and songs.

Perhaps Presence has a sound:

Sometimes thunder.

Sometimes wind.

Sometimes voice.

Sometimes silence.

Sometimes song.

…and sometimes a sound so gentle that only the quiet recognize it.

Creation Begins With Sound

There is an enormous biblical pattern connecting creation, breath, voice, rhythm,

and song.

Job 38 imagines the morning stars singing together at creation.

The Psalms picture rivers clapping their hands, mountains singing, and heavens

declaring.

And Genesis itself begins with God speaking,

“And God said…

”

Creation begins not with a description of God's hands constructing the universe,

but with divine utterance:

God speaks… Light appears.God speaks… Waters separate.

God speaks… Earth emerges.

God speaks… Life multiplies.

Perhaps creation itself is, metaphorically, God’s song becoming visible.

Scientifically, sound involves vibration moving through a medium. Scripture is not

making a scientific claim about acoustics when it says God spoke creation into

existence. Yet the theological imagery is extraordinary: Reality responds to Voice.

Before humanity ever spoke to God, humanity existed because God had spoken.

Adam awakens inside an already-sounding creation: Wind moves. Water flows.

Creatures call. Human lungs fill with neshamah—breath, and eventually, Genesis

tells us that humanity hears the qol of YHWH moving through the garden.

Perhaps Adam did not need an introduction.

The text does not explicitly tell us,

“Adam recognized the sound,

”

so we should be

careful not to make it say more than it does, but Adam certainly knows whose

sound he is hearing, there is relationship here.

There is familiarity, and then something tragic happens, The Sound that once

belonged to communion is now heard through fear: God’s Presence has

approached; Adam hides. What changed? Perhaps not the Sound, perhaps

the hearer.

When Shame Changes the Way We Hear

The tragedy of Genesis 3 may not be that God suddenly became frightening, it may

be that shame changed humanity’s interpretation of God.

Adam says:

“I heard your sound in the garden, and I was afraid…

may describe far more of human spirituality than we realize…

” that sentence

I heard You—and fear interpreted what I heard.

Perhaps salvation therefore includes more than convincing an absent God to

approach us, perhaps it includes the healing of humanity until we can once again

experience the Presence of God without hiding from it.

Maybe the great spiritual question is not simply:

“Where is God?”Perhaps it is:

been here all along?”

“Have I become quiet enough to recognize the Presence that has

We Walk by Faith, Not by Sight

Paul writes: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.

”

—2 Corinthians 5:7

We commonly understand this to mean: Trust even when you cannot see; that is

certainly part of it, but beside the garden story another beautiful possibility

emerges.

Genesis does not say that Adam saw God approaching; he heard the qol.

Then Romans says:

“Faith comes from hearing…

”

And Jesus says in John 10:

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow

”

me.

Notice the movement: Hear… Know… Follow.

Perhaps spiritual formation involves recovering our ability to recognize the

character of the V oice? After Eden, humanity still hears, but fear distorts

interpretation: The Presence that may once have communicated communion now

sounds like danger, and perhaps much of our spiritual journey involves the healing

of that distortion.

Maybe we begin learning again:

●

That Sound is not coming to destroy me.

That V oice is not approaching to humiliate me.

That Presence is not waiting for me to become worthy enough to come

near.

●

Love has always been moving toward us.

Mary in Another Garden

After the resurrection, Mary Magdalene stands near Jesus, she sees him, but she

does not recognize him, she assumes he is the gardener.

Then Jesus speaks one word: “Mary”

...and she knows.

Mary saw him and did not recognize him; she heard him—and turned.That is an extraordinary reversal of Eden.

In the first garden: Humanity hears the Sound and hides.

In the resurrection garden: Humanity hears the Voice and turns toward Him.

The first garden contains the sound of God approaching frightened humanity.

The resurrection garden contains the voice of God calling humanity by name.

Perhaps the gospel is, among many other things, the healing of our hearing, Faith

becomes recognition: Learning the Sound… Recognizing the V oice… Trusting the

Presence… and Turning toward what we once ran from.

We walk by faith rather than sight…

…because sometimes the deepest realities are recognized before they are fully

seen.

Isaiah: Undone by the Sound

Isaiah 6 contains another extraordinary encounter:

Isaiah does not merely receive information about God, he is overwhelmed,

“Woe is me…

”

Traditional translations sometimes render his response:

“I am undone.

”

The Hebrew carries the sense of being ruined, silenced, brought to an end.

Isaiah’s existing “categories” cannot contain what he has encountered, and notice

how much sound fills the scene:

The seraphim call to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy…

”

…and the thresholds shake at the sound of their voices:

Sound… Vibration… Presence… Awareness…

And Isaiah discovers that the self he has constructed cannot stand untouched

before what he has encountered.

We might think of something like sympathetic resonance: Place one tuned

instrument near another, strike the corresponding note, and a string on the second

instrument will begin vibrating. It did not manufacture the original sound, itresponded because it possessed the capacity to resonate with it and it was in

proximity to the other string.

What if Presence awakens something within humanity that was always capable of

responding to Presence?

Adam hears.

Isaiah hears.

Elijah hears silence.

Mary hears her name.

Jesus says:

“My sheep hear my voice.

”

Paul says:

“Faith comes by hearing.

”

Perhaps faith is not primarily straining harder to believe something invisible,

perhaps faith also involves becoming attuned, and what happens when an

instrument is tuned? It does not become a different instrument; it becomes capable

of sounding according to what it was created to be.

That sounds remarkably like formation: not adding Christ to fundamentally

worthless human beings; not manufacturing spirituality; not desperately trying to

pull God closer, but becoming sufficiently still… sufficiently awake… sufficiently

receptive…

…Until something within us begins resonating with the Presence already here.

Perhaps being “undone” is not ultimately annihilation, perhaps it is dissonance

giving way to harmony:

Fear loosens…

Shame loosens…

Performance loosens…

Ego loosens…

Religious identity loosens…

The false structures by which we protect ourselves begin loosening…

And what emerges is not less human, it is more fully human.Journal & Reflection

Pause here before moving on.

Write freely. These questions are invitations, not tests.

☐ What do you imagine when you hear “the sound of God”?

______________________________________________________________________________

☐ Where have you experienced God’s Presence through sound, silence, breath,

music, or another person’s life?

______________________________________________________________________________

____

______________________________________________________________________________

☐ When have shame or fear changed the way you interpreted something good?

______________________________________________________________________________

__☐ What might it mean for you to become quiet enough to recognize Presence?

______________________________________________________________________________

☐ Where are you being invited to move from sight toward trust?

______________________________________________________________________________

← Who You Are Chapter 12Do You Hear What I Hear? Chapter 2 →

Do You Hear What I Hear? Chapter 1

Submit a Comment Cancel reply