“Sheol and Abaddon are before Jehovah; how much more then the hearts of the children of men!” (Proverbs 15:11, ASV).
The Scriptures declare God’s omniscience in staggering ways: Jehovah “counts the number of the stars (estimated by astronomers to be 200 billion trillion or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) and “calls them all by name” (Ps. 147:4). Jehovah knows in real time the death of every bird (Mat. 10:29). Jehovah knows the prenatal growth and development of every baby from conception to delivery (Ps. 139:15-16).
This proverb begins by declaring two more realms of Jehovah’s amazing omniscience. Sheol (the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for the place where human spirits go when they separate from the physical body at death; the Greek word used in the New Testament is Hades) and Abaddon (the Hebrew word for the place of eternal punishment of the wicked; the Greek word is Gehenna) are realms unknown to humans. The only knowledge we have of these realities comes from the God who created them and has all knowledge of them.
This proverb concludes with a sobering point. God’s omniscience includes every human thought and motive. “God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecc. 12:14), because of His amazing omniscience.
This is why Jesus warned of the sheer folly of hypocrisy and warned of God’s judgment: “But there is nothing covered up, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. Wherefore whatsoever ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light; and what ye have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him” (Luke 12:2-5).
