This verse contains a word frequently used in the Bible but which we often seem to miss or overlook. It is the word “quietly.” We don’t hear many sermons on that word. It is not a word stressed in the school of modern instruction. Our age is an age of speak up, speak out and speak forth all your mind. Thus a quiet person is looked upon as odd and unfriendly.

The Greek philosopher Socrates one day was approached by a young man who was of the very talkative kind. Soon he came to the subject of oratory and he asked Socrates to teach him so that he might become a great orator. Socrates told him he would have to charge him double fees because in his case he would be obliged to teach him two sciences — how to speak, and how to hold his tongue.

In truth, both these arts, the Lord needs to teach us. We need to be taught how to speak, but we also need to be taught how to hold our tongues. One has said that if people were the more silent the world would be a very much quieter, as well as a very much happier, place. There is a proverb which says that "speech is silvern, but silence is golden.”