EU•AN•GE•LION (YOO-AN-GEL-EE-ON) · εὐαγγέλιον — Good News
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EU•AN•GE•LION (YOO-AN-GEL-EE-ON) · εὐαγγέλιον — Good News
Jesus says one word and Peter walks on the lake. Then he sees the wind. Day 3 reads that moment beside a proverb from Ecclesiastes about a farmer who watches the weather and never plants.
Matthew 14:28-30; Ecclesiastes 11:4-6; 2 Chronicles 20:12-15; Ecclesiastes 1:14
Opening
“Lord, if it is You,” Peter replied, “command me to come to You on the water.” “Come,” said Jesus. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Matthew 14:28-30 (BSB)
It is the last watch of the night. Jesus has come to the boat across the water and has just said, It is I. Peter answers Him.
Peter asks before he moves. Lord, if it is You, he says, command me to come to You on the water.
Jesus answers with one word. Come.
So Peter gets down out of the boat and walks on the water toward Jesus. Matthew says it flatly, as if a fisherman walking on a lake needed no comment.
Then Matthew writes the sentence this week is named for. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid.
Nobody can see wind. You can see a tree bend or spray fly off the top of a wave, but those are only what wind does. For that moment the wind had Peter's attention. He began to study what it was doing.
Matthew never says that the weather got worse. He told us six verses earlier that the wind was against them, long before Peter stepped out, and the lake was as deep under his walking as under his sinking. The one change Matthew records is in what Peter saw.
Hundreds of years before, a teacher in Israel had written a proverb about a farmer: he who watches the wind will fail to sow.
Scripture already had a name for the man Peter became in that second. He was a wind-watcher.
REFLECT
Do this today: name the one thing you have checked most this week. The next time you reach for it, stop once and say a sentence Jesus says to all His people: I am with you always. If the thing you watch is a person you are not safe with, tell someone today.
A Two-Minute Prayer
Jesus, You said come, and I started well. Then I looked at the wind. Bring my eyes back to You today, as many times as it takes. Amen.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
He who watches the wind will fail to sow, and he who observes the clouds will fail to reap. As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Sow your seed in the morning, and do not rest your hands in the evening, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or if both will equally prosper.
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6 (BSB)
שֹׁמֵר רוּחַ לֹא יִזְרָע וְרֹאֶה בֶעָבִים לֹא יִקְצוֹר
The Teacher is near the end of his book. He has spent ten chapters on what a person cannot control, and here he says what to do about it.
Start with what Peter did, because the story is often told a little wrong. It is told as a story about nerve. Peter is the bold one who climbs out while the others hang back, and so the lesson becomes: take the risk.
His sentence was, Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.
The walk is Peter's own idea, yet he waits to be told. He is a fisherman and he knows what water does to a man who steps onto it, so he will move on a word, if a word is given, and on nothing less.
His sentence also begins with if. A minute ago he thought this was a ghost. Jesus answers a prayer that begins with if.
The answer in Greek is a single word, elthe (ἐλθέ), come, spoken to one man. The sentence before it was different. Take courage is plural in Greek, said to the whole boat, and it is still true for the eleven who stay in it.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. Matthew's verb for walked is the one he used three verses earlier for Jesus walking on the sea. For that moment the fisherman is doing what his Lord is doing, on a borrowed word.
Hold onto this on a hard day. Faith in this passage begins with a voice Peter knows and a word he has been given, and his courage comes second. He puts his weight where the word is. For a few seconds the most solid thing on that lake is one word. He is standing on it.
The wind was already blowing when he stepped out of the boat.
Take the next sentence slowly, because English Bibles differ here by one word.
Most say Peter saw that the wind was strong. Our main translation has the strength of the wind, where the King James has the wind boisterous. Some of the oldest copies of Matthew are shorter and say only that he saw the wind. The American Standard Version follows them and reads, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid.
Either way, the thing Peter is looking at is the wind, and Matthew uses the everyday Greek word for looking at something. Peter read his chances from what the wind was doing. The word had not been taken back, and Jesus had not moved away.
The verbs come in an order: he saw, he was afraid, he began to sink. The looking came before the fear. The fear came before the sinking.
We should be fair to him. Nobody stands in a gale and fails to notice it. Jesus never rebukes Peter for feeling the wind on his face. The trouble starts when the wind becomes the thing he measures everything by, when a minute ago he was measuring by a word.
Our God, will You not judge them? For we are powerless before this vast army that comes against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.
2 Chronicles 20:12 (BSB)
King Jehoshaphat of Judah prays this aloud in front of his people. A vast army drawn from three peoples is coming against Judah, and he has no plan. Hold on to his last line.
Ecclesiastes records the findings of a man the book calls the Teacher. He set out to study everything done under the sun, and he may be the most honest observer in the Bible, because he writes down what he sees, including what he cannot explain.
He has two favourite words. The first is hevel (הֶבֶל), which means vapor or breath, and which our translation renders futile. It is the mist of your breath on a cold morning, real enough to see and impossible to hold.
The second is ruach (רוּחַ), wind, which appears 24 times in his short book. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, he writes, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
The Teacher knows three things about wind. Nobody can hold it, and he says so: no man has power over the wind to contain it. Nobody can predict it, for in his words, you do not know the path of the wind. And it never stops coming, because round and round it swirls, he writes, ever returning on its course.
In Hebrew ruach means wind, breath and spirit, all three. That is why two English Bibles can part ways over a single line of his. Ours reads, you do not know the path of the wind, and the King James reads, thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit. Both are fair, because both are in the word. A Hebrew reader has to tell from the setting which is meant: the gust that bends a tree, the breath in a person's chest, or the Spirit of God. None of them can be seen or held, and the last is no gust at all but God Himself.
Then the Teacher tells a very short story about a farmer. In Hebrew it is four words. Shomer ruach lo yizra. A watcher of wind will not sow.
This farmer is a careful man. In his world seed was thrown by hand, so a gust could carry it where he did not want it. So he stands at the edge of his field with a full bag, studies the sky and waits for a better day, and it looks like wisdom. The Teacher's verdict is that the man will never plant, because there is always some wind.
Remember what shomer means. It is a keeper, a guard, and it is the verb used when God puts the first man in the garden to keep it. The farmer has taken a good word and pointed it at the wrong thing. He is standing guard over the wind, the one thing in his life he cannot keep.
The Teacher's answer is something to do, and these are his words: sow your seed in the morning, and do not rest your hands in the evening, for you do not know which will succeed. His reason is that you do not know. The farmer treats what he does not know as a reason to wait. The Teacher treats it as the reason to plant.
Now go back to the lake. Peter has been given one thing to do, which is to come, and he is doing it. Then he does what the farmer does: he starts studying conditions, and he lets the wind tell him whether the word still holds. For one moment a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee becomes the farmer in the proverb.
Matthew never mentions the proverb. The two pictures sit in the same Bible and explain each other.
A third picture shows the way out. Jehoshaphat is a king with an army coming and no idea what to do. He neither pretends the army is small nor closes his eyes to it. He prays, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.
The last part is two words in Hebrew, alekha eineinu (עָלֶיךָ עֵינֵינוּ). Upon You, our eyes.
That prayer has two halves. Peter needed both. The first half is the Teacher's honesty: we do not know. The second half is the thing the wind-watcher never does, which is to lift his eyes off the weather and put them on someone.
Read on in the chronicle and see how the prayer was answered. All the men of Judah were standing there with their wives and children and little ones. Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel, a Levite standing in the middle of the crowd, and he said, Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army, for the battle does not belong to you, but to God.
The word for Spirit there is ruach. The answer to lifted eyes came by the ruach nobody can see or hold, through one man in the crowd, and it was meant for all of them.
Most of us do not watch weather. We watch a number, a screen, or a test result that has not come yet.
Here is a plain way to find your wind. Ask what you have checked today that had not changed since the last time you checked it. That may be where you have been standing guard.
Wind-watching is hard to stop because it feels like being responsible, and nothing like fear. The farmer at the edge of his field would tell you he is being careful. Checking again feels like doing something. Often it is the thing we do in place of the one thing we were asked to do.
Go on looking at real things. Watch over the sick child, open the bill and keep the appointment, and test each look: does it end in a step, or only in another look? If you cannot stop checking however hard you try, that can be an illness, and it is no failure of faith. See a doctor, and keep praying.
Looking at Jesus can sound vague, so here is what it means in this passage. Peter had a word from Jesus and was acting on it. Looking at Jesus meant keeping that word in front of him and taking the next step on it.
For you it will mean something just as plain. Go back to the last clear thing you know God has said to all His people. It may be a promise of His presence, or a command you have been putting off until conditions improve. Do the next small part of it today, with the wind still blowing.
The wind outlasted Peter's looking. It was still blowing when he was pulled up. It blew until Jesus climbed into the boat. Keeping your eyes on Him will not give you control of the weather, and it is no promise that you will never begin to sink. Peter did.
He Took Notice Withal
Matthew Henry wrote about this verse some three hundred years ago. He put the whole moment into one long sentence. Its first half is about the walking. “While Peter kept his eye fixed upon Christ, and upon his word and power, he walked upon the water well enough;” Its second half is about the sinking. “but when he took notice withal of the danger he was in, and observed how the floods lift up their waves, then he feared.” Withal is an old word for as well. In Henry’s sentence Peter has begun to take notice of something else as well, so that he now has two things in view, and the second one is louder.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
This is an early form of the common saying that Peter took his eyes off Jesus, which the Gospel itself never puts in those words.
Full Face to the Sun
Lilias Trotter was an English artist. The art critic John Ruskin saw her work and told her what a future she could have if she gave herself to art. She became a missionary in Algeria instead.
She wrote a small leaflet called Focussed. It opens in a little wood in the early morning, where something shines out from a dark corner like a great golden star. It is only a dandelion, she says, and half withered, but it stands full face to the sun and has caught all the glory it can hold.
God’s grace lies around us like that light, she writes, on one condition.
“that we stand full face to God.”
Then she talks about lenses. Look at the bars of a window, and the view beyond goes soft. Look at the view, and the bars fade like ghosts.
“How do we bring things to a focus in the world of optics? Not by looking at the things to be dropped, but by looking at the one point that is to be brought out.”
She ends with an appeal.
“Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him”.
A hymn writer named Helen Lemmel read the leaflet in 1918. The chorus of a new song came to her then, a magazine later reported, words and tune together. You may know it. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Trotter was trained to see. She knew that whatever the eye settles on comes out sharp, and that the rest goes soft without going away. The wind could go on blowing. It only had to stop being the thing Peter was focused on.
Where This Sits in the Story
ANCIENT TRUTH
Matthew sets this night straight after the feeding of the five thousand, in the MINISTRY stretch of the story, when Jesus is teaching twelve men who He is. Ecclesiastes comes from Israel’s wisdom teachers, who watched closely how life works under the sun.
Jehoshaphat stood in the time of the KINGDOM with an army coming and no plan. His prayer names what he does not know and where he is looking, in a single sentence. Ecclesiastes supplies the first half of that prayer and the Gospel supplies the second.
MODERN APPLICATION
A phone will show you the wind at any hour: prices, results, opinions, forecasts. Much of it is accurate, and none of it can tell you whether He is with you.
NEW TESTAMENT ECHO
Years later Peter told the church where to keep its attention. He wrote that we do well to pay attention to the word of the prophets, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns (2 Peter 1:19). We will read that at the end of the week.
REFLECT
When the fear came this week, what were you looking at in the moment just before it?
A Practice for Today
Jehoshaphat prayed with his eyes. This practice does the same with yours. It takes about three minutes.
Stand
Stand at a window or outside, feet apart, hands open at your sides.
Watch what moves
Find something the wind or the day is moving: a branch, traffic, a screen. Watch it for ten slow breaths and notice what your body does.
Lift your eyes
Raise your eyes to one fixed point above it: a rooftop, a hill, a star.
Pray
Say aloud: We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.
Take one step
Take one step forward before you look down again. Then go and do the next thing in front of you.
We stop today where Matthew's sentence turns: he was afraid, and beginning to sink.
It would be kinder to end with the rescue, which is coming. But stay here for one day. A man is in the open lake at night with water closing around his legs. A minute ago he was walking. Matthew puts one thing between the walking and the sinking: he saw the wind, and he was afraid.
If you are in that place this week, you are not the first, and you have not disqualified yourself. Eleven men were still dry in the boat. None of them had walked a single step.
People also sink who never looked away. Paul wrote of a burden far beyond his ability to endure, and he blames no failure of his own for it.
The Teacher would tell you there will always be some wind, and not to wait for it to drop. Jehoshaphat would give you his sentence to borrow: we do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.
And Peter has three words left in him.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You spoke one word to Peter and it held him up. I have Your word too, and I have been reading the wind to see whether You are still with me. Help my unbelief. I do not know the path of the wind. I do not know what tomorrow will bring or which of my plans will succeed. You have not asked me to know. You have asked me to come. So I lift my eyes off what is blowing and I put them on You. When they drift back to the weather, turn them again. Give me one step today that I can take on Your word alone. Amen.
BREATH PRAYER
Inhale: I do not know what to do — Exhale: but my eyes are on You
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Today's Commitment
I will name the one thing I have been watching most this week. Today, when I notice I am checking it, I will pray Jehoshaphat’s sentence once and take the next step in front of me.
LEAVING AT THE CROSS
RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS
Check Yourself
According to Matthew 14:24, when was the wind already blowing against the boat?
The Honest Observer
a wisdom teacher of Israel, named in his book only as the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem
Tradition has long identified him with Solomon. The book never uses that name, and most scholars today think its Hebrew comes from a later time. What is certain is his method. He watches life closely and writes down what he sees.
He who watches the wind will fail to sow.
LESSON FOR US
The Teacher is honest about how little we control, and he does not let that honesty turn into paralysis. Not knowing is his reason to sow.
Sources & Further Study
RELATED SCRIPTURES
Matthew 14:22-33
The whole night, from the sending to the worship.
Ecclesiastes 11:1-6
The wind-watcher, the path of the wind, and the command to sow anyway.
Ecclesiastes 1:12-14
All of it futile, a pursuit of the wind.
Ecclesiastes 8:8
No man has power over the wind to contain it.
2 Chronicles 20:1-17
The army, the prayer, and the answer that came by the Spirit.
Genesis 2:15
The man placed in the garden to keep it, the same verb as the wind-watcher.
2 Corinthians 1:8-11
Paul under a burden beyond his strength.
2 Peter 1:19
A lamp shining in a dark place.
FOR DEEPER STUDY
Hebrew: Ecclesiastes 11:4 opens shomer ruach lo yizra. Shomer is a participle of shamar, Strong’s H8104, to keep or watch; the same verb stands in Genesis 2:15, and the same root gives shemurot, eyelids, in Psalm 77:4 (Day 1). Ruach, H7307, means wind, breath or spirit and appears 24 times in Ecclesiastes; it is the word for the Spirit of the LORD in 2 Chronicles 20:14. In Ecclesiastes 11:5 the King James reads “the way of the spirit” where newer translations read “the path of the wind”; the Hebrew allows both. Hevel, H1892, is vapor or breath. In 1:14 the phrase re’ut ruach is best supported as striving after wind; the King James “vexation of spirit” stands alone. Second Chronicles 20:12 ends alekha eineinu, upon You our eyes. Greek: take courage in Matthew 14:27, tharseite, is plural; come in 14:29, elthe, is an aorist imperative, singular, of erchomai, G2064; walked is periepatesen, from peripateo, G4043, the verb used of Jesus in 14:25. Matthew 14:30 saw is blepon, from blepo, G991, the everyday verb for looking. Some early manuscripts read only “the wind”; others add “strong,” and the standard critical text prints the word in brackets. The American Standard Version follows the shorter reading. The ancient Greek version of Ecclesiastes 11:4 has anemon, wind, in its first line and blepon, looking, in its second, the two words of Matthew 14:30; this is an overlap of vocabulary, and no claim is made that Matthew is quoting. Authorship of Ecclesiastes: tradition names Solomon; the book names only the Teacher. Notes on the story. Trotter’s leaflet carries no date. The account of the hymn comes from a report in the Sunday School Times of November 1954, printed in Helen Lemmel’s lifetime; how the leaflet reached her is not known, and the hymn echoes Trotter’s sentence without quoting it. Trotter’s last quoted sentence continues in the original after the word Him. Matthew Henry goes on, after the lines quoted, to say that the sinking of our spirits is owing to the weakness of our faith, a rule this page does not draw. Sources 1. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 5, on Matthew 14:30. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Henry lived from 1662 to 1714. 2. Lilias Trotter, Focussed (Algiers Mission Band and North Africa Mission, undated reprint), pages 1 to 7. Scan at hymnologyarchive.com. 3. M. M. Chapman, in the Sunday School Times, vol. 96, no. 46 (13 November 1954), pages 946 and 956, on Helen Lemmel and the hymn. 4. Blanche Pigott, I. Lilias Trotter (1930), for Ruskin’s encouragement; and John Ruskin, The Art of England, Lecture 1, for his own account of meeting her in Venice in 1876. Further: BibleProject, “Why the Holy Spirit Isn’t Just a ‘Force’,” on ruach as wind, breath and God’s personal presence.
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