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# Surprised by Silence
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/surprised-by-silence/
- Published: 2026-08-27T11:00:15.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T11:00:15.000Z
- Description: God speaks. The Word makes. And we? Sometimes we must linger in the silence between.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Matthew L. Rubinstein, Theology

Augustine’s *Confessions* has become one of my longest reading journeys. By that, I don’t mean it’s a book I’ve reread repeatedly, though I hope that to ultimately be true. What I mean is that I began the book over six months ago. Granted, I am naturally a slow reader, yet nearly every sentence is arresting, offering pause to interweave thought and interleave Scripture.

Yet one autobiographical and historical detail provided by Augustine has repeatedly caused me to set the book down for “a think,” struck by the detail’s significance not only to Augustine but also, perhaps, to the Christian life. The detail concerns a habit of Ambrose, the renowned bishop whom Augustine met—and by whom he was deeply influenced—after moving to Milan to teach rhetoric. The habit of Ambrose that Augustine preserves in Book VI, chapter 3, is this: silent reading.

It’s not that silent reading, of itself, was unknown. What specifically seems to have impressed itself upon Augustine was Ambrose’s habit of reading silently even while others entered, waited, and watched in Ambrose’s presence. The bishop’s door was always open, but the man himself had—in silent reading and reflection—entered a space they could not follow. To Augustine, himself thoroughly trained in rhetoric and the sonorous life of words, the scene was one he preserved of necessity in his autobiography.

From Anthony Esolen’s recent translation, Augustine’s surprise and wonderment:

> But when he read, his eyes went through the pages, while his heart spied into the sense, and his voice and tongue were still. Often when we were there—for no one was kept from entering his house, nor was it his custom to have visitors announced—we would see him reading in this way, silently, and never otherwise. We might then sit in daylong silence—for who would dare be a burden to someone so intent?—and finally take our leave.

There are arresting parallels between Augustine’s vision of Ambrose and the 1981 film *The Chosen*, based on Chaim Potok’s novel of the same name. Although I would rarely reference a film over the book from which it was adapted, Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Reb Saunders is remarkable. He believably reveals Saunders’ heart and—more importantly here—the nature of Reb Saunders’ relationship with his son, Danny. Gifted with a nearly perfect memory and an ability to see Scripture in every aspect of life and learning, Danny has been raised to follow in his father’s footsteps and eventually become the rabbi of their community. Yet, parceled with Danny’s talent was also an arrogance toward others, and an absence of real compassion.

Observing this early, Saunders resolved to withhold basic and direct conversation from his son, though he continued to care for and to teach him attentively as a mentor. It was a silence that hurt Danny deeply. But it was a silence, too, by which his father hoped to awaken in Danny an inward hearing: a capacity to perceive the suffering of others and receive the voice of his own heart and the voice of Torah.

Now, Ambrose’s silence was certainly of another kind, and he did converse with Augustine. Still, I suspect that his manner of silence planted a similar seed in Augustine, himself tremendously gifted and—by his own account—arrogant in his early life. Augustine was clearly surprised by this silence, and although it may not have been instructionally deliberate, surprise often awakens something in us, sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a lifetime. It is that “something” awakened in Augustine through his presence in the silence of that room—resonant even with the experience of a fictional character, Danny—that has made this brief episode in the *Confessions* a kind of hub from which my continued reading of *Confessions* proceeds.

For another moment, though, before I carry on with my own reading, I want to remain with Augustine, observing Ambrose in wonderment, while considering the ripples of another silence: one destined also to pour forth in proclamation.

Consider the Hebrew word: *rāqîaʿ*. It means “the firmament” or “the expanse.” It first appears in Genesis 1:6, where God establishes “the expanse” as a separation between the waters. At first, the expanse appears almost as silence itself: a mute space opened and held between waters above and waters below. God names it Heaven. Later, he sets the lights within the expanse to distinguish day from night and to mark days, seasons, and years.

Yet Scripture continues to reveal the *rāqîaʿ* as something more. By Psalm 19, the expanse is no longer shown merely as a boundary within creation, nor simply as a massive vault in which the lights move. It has become proclamatory, itself a herald.

> *The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above \[from the Hebrew rāqîaʿ\] proclaims his handiwork.Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard.*(Ps. 19:1–3)

Then at Psalm 150, at the terminus of the Psalter, the heraldic movement becomes explicitly human. We are, in the psalm, summoned to join the praise already resounding in creation. We are called to praise God "in his sanctuary" and "in his mighty heavens," the living God in the *rāqîaʿ* of his power: “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens \[from the Hebrew *rāqîaʿ*\]!” (Ps. 150:1)

Yet, if we continue to let Scripture intertwine, before praise there comes another invitation. The prophet Isaiah bids us to slow down. "Listen to me in silence, O coastlands..." (Isa. 41:1). The coastlands, representing scattered peoples, are not summoned first to action, or even to praise. They are called to silence. Only then comes the invitation in the same verse: "...let them approach, then let them speak..."

That sequence is consequential. In a world ruled by noise and assertion, and by endless mechanisms of mind, silence is never emptiness. Silence is where revelation may be received. It is like the *rāqîaʿ*, like a sandbar set between lashing waters. It is perhaps what Augustine sensed while watching Ambrose read. It is what Danny, by his father’s hard love, came upon. And into silence God speaks: "I AM WHO I AM" (Ex. 3:14). 

Is that the silence we ourselves so often resist? Is this the silence that surprises? Before the heavens declare his glory and before humanity joins, God simply is. However, God does not remain hidden, culminating in what C. S. Lewis names the greatest miracle: the One who made, who named, the *rāqîaʿ* enters the world that he spoke into being. The eternal “I AM,” who eternally loves, takes flesh. The Word, through whom all things were made, is among us. And then comes the greatest surprise: the One before whom Isaiah’s coastlands fell silent now speaks forgiveness and stretches out his hands upon a cross to the still point of “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Silence ripples. On the pages of Scripture, somewhere between the “I AM” and the “It is finished,” we encounter another silence, this time with Elijah (1 Kgs. 19:11-13):

> *And \[the Lord\] said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper \[qōl dĕmāmāh daqqāh\].*

In this verse, then comes the *qōl dĕmāmāh daqqāh*. Not the mountain-whipping of wind, nor the ruckus of rocks, nor even flame, but—in translation—the low whisper, the thin silence. Then:

> *When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”*

What *are* we doing here? Silence will surprise. Silence may prepare, expose, humble, awaken. Yet silence was never the destination, just as Psalm 150 is not a psalm of silence. Elijah does not remain standing before a silent cave. Augustine does not remain forever sitting, watching Ambrose read. And *The Chosen* ends with Danny walking on, not trapped in his father's silence, but going out into the world to serve.

God speaks. The Word makes. And we? Sometimes we must linger in the silence between. Out of the stillness, the heavens still declare his glory. The Church now declares his Gospel. And faith comes. It comes not from our striving, our observations, or, ultimately, even our silence, but “from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). O coastlands, Christ is risen.