The Hungry Soul

Eating seems to be a much more pleasant experience when one is hungry. The hungrier someone is, the better food seems to taste. Imagine being so hungry that even food you normally hate tastes wonderful to you. This translates into spiritual language in the Bible.

Proverbs 27:7 ¶ The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

God declares that what satisfies hunger is called bread.

Proverbs 25:21 ¶ If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:

Jesus is the spiritual bread that gives life.

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

In the Bible, bread is synonymous with the Words of Jesus. We read:

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” (John 6:51-58 AV)

Here's what ties the bread of life with the Words of Jesus:

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.

The words of Jesus are the bread of life that can satisfy a hungry soul. The Bible is the Word of Jesus because Jesus is God. It's quite safe to assume that hunger and bread in the Bible are Spiritual and that the contemplation of the physical hunger and bread for its own sake does no good. Proverbs 27:7 can only teach us anything spiritually profitable if we bear this in mind. A hungry soul can only be satisfied with spiritual food just as a hungry body can only be satisfied with physical food.

But, not everything in the Bible is pleasant to read. There are plenty of passages in the Bible that are unpleasant, challenging to our pride, disgusting in imagery, or even frightening, i.e., bitter. Imagine being so spiritually hungry that even the bitter things in the Bible are sweet to you. Imagine loving to read even the bitter things in the Bible and being glad to read them just because you're receiving the bread for which you're so starved. Imagine loving the truth of the Bible so much that even reading about unhappy things like eternal damnation are a blessing to you. These are the characteristics of a hungry soul.

The full soul doesn't want any food at all. Of course, such an individual may enjoy reading about heaven and may skip reading about hell, but the Bible can't be segmented. If one doesn't love everything in the Bible, then one doesn't love the Bible at all. If the bitter things are not sweet to you, then your soul is not hungry.

Revelation 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and [from] the things which are written in this book.

It could be argued that reading about the sweet things in the Bible is not loathing a honeycomb, so someone who reads any of the Bible is not full but hungry, but I submit to you that the honeycomb doesn't refer to the sweet things but the bitter things. What could be more bitter than the frightening, saddening things that we find in the book of Revelation?

“And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go [and] take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take [it], and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” (Revelation 10:8-11 AV)

If you read further in Revelation, you will find that most of it is bitter because it refers to the destruction of this present world and the judgment and damnation of the unsaved. Yet, the little book, which presumably contained the information that John was then told that he must still prophesy, tasted sweet to him even as it made his belly bitter. It was not a different peace of food. John was not given one book that was sweet and another that was bitter. The bitter thing was also sweet as honey. The honeycomb is the bitter thing that satisfies the hungry soul. Therefore, when God says that the full soul loathes a honeycomb, he can only be referring to the bitter things in the Bible. The soul that loathes the bitter things, even if he or she doesn't loathe the sweet things, is loathing the honeycomb and is therefore full, not hungry. A full soul will be satisfied with a partial repast, which is no repast at all because it doesn't consist of the whole truth, the whole Bible.