Whose Voice Are You Listening To? Discerning Barren Voices
By definition, a voice is a pronouncement, a right of expression, and an influential power. A voice is a powerful thing! A voice can release truth and shatters lies. It can cut through silence, bring clarity, and shape the atmosphere around you.
A voice can bind and loose, release declarations, and shape the future. A voice can be used as a weapon of the enemy or a sword of truth in your mouth. A voice is a powerful thing!
A voice can come from God, the devil, others, and even ourselves. The voices we choose to listen to matter because they can influence us and determine our direction. We must discern the voices we allow in our lives and partner only with those that speak truth and bring life.
Voices from the Book of Esther
“On the seventh day of the feast, when King Xerxes was in high spirits because of the wine, he told the seven eunuchs who attended him—Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas—to bring Queen Vashti to him with the royal crown on her head. He wanted the nobles and all the other men to gaze on her beauty, for she was a very beautiful woman. But when they conveyed the king’s order to Queen Vashti, she refused to come. This made the king furious, and he burned with anger.
He immediately consulted with his wise advisers, who knew all the Persian laws and customs, for he always asked their advice. The names of these men were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan—seven nobles of Persia and Media. They met with the king regularly and held the highest positions in the empire.”
Esther 1:10–14
What Is a Eunuch?
In biblical times, kings commonly surrounded themselves with servants called eunuchs. Eunuchs were made barren before they could serve the king in order to protect the queen’s virtue and to protect against producing illegitimate children that might one day vie for the throne. Just as a physical eunuch is barren in the natural so, too, can this represent eunuchs in the spirit.
Esther 1:10 says, “When King Xerxes was in high spirits because of the wine,” he summoned his eunuchs to bring Queen Vashti to him, wearing only her royal crown. The situation is already veering off course because the king is drunk and not in his right mind or reasoning. He is asking his eunuchs—the picture of barren voices—to bring forth the queen in a degrading manner. Calling for barren voices, especially when you are not in your right mind, is usually not a wise decision.
Importance of a Name
Who were these eunuchs? In Jewish culture, parents believed that when they named their children, they were speaking that child’s identity over them. As such, the names of the eunuchs can tell us a lot about them.
Below are some keys to the voices that can come at us, no matter their origin. We must be careful about the voices we listen to and partner with. The power of life and death is in the tongue. (See Proverbs 18:21.)
The King’s Eunuchs: Voices of Barrenness
1. Mehuman
The name Mehuman means “I have been faithful” and “making an uproar.”
At first, this might seem positive. After all, who doesn’t appreciate a faithful friend? But this voice is often only faithful until they have a demand or want something from you.
We must be careful of those who feel entitled to influence us because they are faithful. If someone uses their faithfulness as a hook to place a demand on you when they want something, then they are not truly faithful at all. They have an agenda and are faithful to you in order to extract something from you in the future.
Our obedience must first be to the voice of the Lord. We cannot bow to manipulation or man-pleasing. We can honor those who have been faithful to us without dishonoring God’s voice and how He’s leading us. The faithfulness of the others does not elevate their place of authority in our lives over the voice of God.
2. Biztha
The name Biztha means “I have served you well, you owe me a lot” and “despise.”
Be careful of the voice of manipulation from those who have served or helped you in the past. If someone helped you with the aim of making you repay them in the future, then they were never really helping you at all. Their “help” was simply a convenient cover for their true selfish motive—to serve you as an investment in their own future in order to make you indebted to them, controlling you for their own personal gain.
3. Harbona
The name Harbona name means “my own decisions” and “destruction.” Be careful of the voice of independence and pride that leads to destruction. It can often be helpful to receive counsel from others. However, we should not listen to all counsel but must listen to the right counsel!
“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 14:11).
Please note, at times, God may call you to go against the grain. People may not understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. They may judge your motives and intent. But if God is truly speaking to you, He will confirm His word, direct you, and give you peace. Just make sure that you aren’t listening to the voice of independence and pride. Pride will never produce life.
4. Bigtha
The name Bigtha means “in the wine press through many afflictions.” You can bond with someone when going through suffering or hard times with them. You might be encouraged when someone understands the suffering that you are going through, but this voice can often you hold you back and keep you from moving beyond the wine press of affliction.
This voice can seek to keep you in stuck in the place of affliction because if you heal and move forward, then it will not only convict them of their stagnancy of staying rooted in pain but they will often grieve what feels like a loss of a friend. You cannot make people move forward with you, but do not allow this voice to hold you back and keep you stuck in a season of affliction longer than the Lord intends. Go through the process, learn the lesson, heal, and press forward, receiving voices that speak to your future and not to your past pain.
Just because you have gone through so much with a person doesn’t mean they have wisdom for the new place God may be leading you. Be careful of those speaking into your life from a place of affliction or bitterness.
5. Abagtha
This name Abagtha means “father of the winepress.” This voice will try to take credit for who you have become, especially after serving as a source of protection, wisdom, or guidance through past hard-pressed times.
Just because someone was there for you through a difficult season does not mean that they know how to or are mature enough to release from or to see you from any other identity than who you were in the season of affliction in the winepress. They can’t or won’t relate to you beyond your crushing season.
Your growth and expansion beyond the pressing season can confront a leader or spiritual parent who wants to own you or keep you under them. They don’t want you to break out of or rise above them. They want to control you and keep you dependent on them. Your freedom causes a sting of loss, and this voice often seeks validation in being needed.
Be careful of those who need to get their validation from having poured into you—fathered or mothered you—in the past but can’t see you as anything more than who you were in your season of affliction. Healthy voices can embrace both your past and celebrate and acknowledge your healing, growth, and the future God has called you to.
6. Zethar
The name Zethar means “I’ll bring you out on top” and “unclear.”
This is the voice of flattery, competition, and pride. This voice never brings clarity but clouds sound judgement and hinders spiritual vision. When there is competition and vying for a place at the perceived top, our eyes are not on God but focused on ourselves.
The kingdom of God is an upside-down Kingdom. Jesus is the highest in the kingdom, yet he lowered himself to be a servant of all. God says we too should seek to be servants of all.
The Bible says
“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35)
“The last shall be first and the first shall be last” (Matthew 20:16).
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
“But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you” (Luke 14:10).
We are in great danger if our goal is to strive for what we think is the top. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Be careful of listening to voices of pride that flatter and cause competition, vying for a place of prominence and platform before men. Instead, we must humble ourselves before the King of Kings.
7. Carkas
The name Carkas means “bound one” or “the covering of a lamb.” This voice insists we are bound and cannot be free. This voice keeps you trapped and covers or hides your true identity in Christ.
We are called to confront cycles of dysfunction, bondage, and strongholds of the mind. As children of God, we should refuse to be bound. “Deliverance is the children’s bread.” (See Mark 7:25–30.)
Caution About Seven Voices of “Wisdom”
Just has the King had eunuchs who served him, he also had seven wise men who served him. The King called on these seven wise men who were “experts in matters of law and justice…men who understood the times and were closest to the King” (Esther 1:13–14).
The Bible states that these seven wise men saw the king’s face. These were men who were so close to the king that they had face-to-face conversations. These men held the highest position in the kingdom next to the king and were given access and permission to speak to the King and had great influence with him.
Voices might seem to come from a position of wisdom and influence, or you may have given those voices access to speak into your life in the past. But that does not mean that what they said is wisdom in this season or that it’s fresh word from the Lord. The right counsel in the wrong season is still the wrong counsel.
The Voices of the Seven Wise Men
1. Carshena
The name Carshena means as “a lamb sleeping.” We cannot place a high value on counsel from those who are spiritually asleep. Though they may be a fellow Christian and offer a measure of insight, they cannot offer divine wisdom and revelation if they are spiritually asleep.
2. Shethar
The name Shethar means “I’ll search out your answers” and “decay.” This speaks to seeking out answers from dead places, such as atheism, humanism, new age, witchcraft, and other religion. Be careful of listening to the voice of mixture. Keep what is holy, holy! Dead places cannot produce life. Only truth, wisdom, and life-giving solutions come from God.
3. Admatha
The name Admatha means “without discipline,” “self-destruction,” and “a cloud of death, mortal vapor.” This voice speaks to the voice of rebellion, lack of self-control, and even self-sabotage that leads to death.
This is the voice that believes you can have your cake and eat it too. This voice will have you convinced that you can feed the lusts of the flesh and also walk in the divine nature in Christ. Though there is grace and no one is perfect, this refers to willfully ignoring godly standards with no shred of humility or repentance.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 16:25).
“The wages of sin are death” (Romans 6:23).
Listening to this voice will often open a door of oppression, depression, and death in your life. That might be physically but will almost certainly be spiritually and emotionally.
4. Tarshish
The name Tarshish means “it will cause poverty” and “examination.” This voice will constantly examine the cost of decisions through the lens of poverty. It will tell you all the ways a decision will cost you: financially, emotionally, spiritually, or even physically. It will magnify what you could potentially lose rather than see what you could potentially gain.
This voice will often try to talk you out of something before you even start or will use well-meaning people close to you to sow seeds of doubt, keeping you stalled in a place of inaction. This voice will often have you so caught up in examining the cost of a decision that you can be frozen in fear and never actually pursue the very thing that may just be the greatest blessing and fulfillment to you.
5. Meres
The name Meres means “worthy, you deserve more honor” and “pus or abscess.”
This is the voice of pride that often sounds like:
“If people only knew who I was.”
“If people only knew how gifted I was.”
“I deserve to be honored.”
This voice of pride always lacks character and integrity. It will tell you of the promotion you deserve while making you believe you can circumvent the process. Promotion without process will result in a stunted character.
Promotion without process can kill you spiritually and harm or infect the body, like a pus-filled abscess.
6. Marsena
The name Marsena means “bitter or cancerous” and will speak negatively of every situation. This voice tempts us when painful times come, when there is heartache that seems to have no answers, and when injustice has been committed with no justice served. This voice will often tempt us to blame God and become bitter.
The voice cannot only defile you but can defile many. We are a temple of the Holy Spirit and as such, we should not allow anything in our lives that brings defilement. “A bitter root defiles many” (Hebrews 12:15).
The oil of intimacy with God keeps our hearts soft and free of offense. Knowing Him and His goodness protects us from the voice of bitterness that will often lie about a situation.
7. Memucan
The name Memucan means “poverty, to prepare, certain, true.” It speaks to what your decisions may cost others. Even though our lives do affect others, our obedience must be to God first. There is wisdom in a multitude of counselors. I am not suggesting that we are above the need for trusted counselors in our lives, but sometimes, God will test our obedience to Him over pleasing man.
Not everyone will understand the decisions that you make or how God may be leading you, but you never know how God might use your obedience to His voice in the lives of others.
What If You Don’t Know Which Voices to Trust?
One of your greatest protections from the influence of barren voices is developing your relationship with God and learning to hear and know His voice. If you don’t trust yourself or trust that you are hearing from God, other controlling voices can easily insert themselves in your life.
As believers, God’s Spirit is alive and active in us. Holy Spirit is a faithful teacher and compass for life. His peace guides, guards, and protects us. Therefore, a sense of unrest or that something is off is often a red flag or caution to your spirit. Do not discount your gut feeling—even if you once believed someone was faithful friend or trust advisor in your life, you must discern and be faithful to the voice of God above all else.
What can you do if you aren’t sure how to hear God’s voice and don’t know who to trust? Below are four practical keys.
1. Renew Your Mind with the Word
Jesus is the Word of God. John 1:1–3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word of God—Jesus—was around before the written word of God!
You should absolutely read the Bible, but be careful of trying to encounter God through reading the Bible as plain text, when instead the Word of God—Jesus—wants to encounter you! We must read the Word and spend time with the Word Himself because that is how intimacy with the Lord grows.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
2. The Fear of the Lord
If you struggle to trust yourself, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).
3. Ask God for Wisdom
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5).
4. Trust God
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6)
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9).
A Voice Is a Powerful Thing!
We must be careful who we surround ourselves with and discern what voices we are allowing to influence us. The voices closest to us can either speak truth and propel us forward, or they can hinder us and cause great destruction.
I’d encourage you to think about the voices you have been allowing to speak into your life or even the voices within yourself that you may be listening to. Ask God to reveal and root out any barren voices that have hindered you spiritually and kept you from moving forward in God. Then, ask Him to bring those wise voices to you, voices that will produce life. Finally, spend time with the very voice of God Himself, cultivating His truth and His presence!
Note: The definitions of all names were taken from www.biblestudytools.com.
