Ambiguity
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife…” (Genesis 2:24, KJV)
These words are quite well known despite the word ‘cleave’ seldom being used in contemporary English language. But what has ‘cleave’ got to do with ‘ambiguity’?
That word ‘cleave’ is my favourite example of the ambiguity and lack of clarity that abounds in our language. It is a word that has two totally opposite meanings, and which meaning applies can only be determined by the context it is used in. ‘Cleave’ is what you do when you are joined in marriage. And ‘cleave’ is what you do when you split some firewood with an axe. Marriage and divorce, joining and splitting in one word! It all depends on the context.
And ambiguity gets worse than the spoken word; someone that I am ‘cleaved’ to (my wife) has been known to use the expression “it’s not what you say but how you say it!” And it gets even worse! Body language plays a role in ambiguity as well. All things considered it’s something of a wonder that there’s as much clarity as there is!
There’s a little flippancy in my comments so far. But there’s a serious beginning and ending to it.
You can read about the start of confusion and ambiguity in Genesis 11. Humankind was defying God by inventing their own religion. To stop this, at least for a time, God split them up by giving different languages to various groups so they no longer understood each other. This happened at the Tower of Babel. ‘Babel’ is a word that’s entered our language in various forms but all denoting confusion. One example is the word ‘babble’.
But all this ambiguity, lack of clarity, confusion will not always be the case.
“For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord.” (Zephaniah 3:9, NKJV)
This verse talks about a time of unity, clarity of purpose, and the peace that there will be when Jesus returns. And so much more. It’s all in God’s book the Bible. All we have to do to start with is read it.