Ear, ears. οὖς, אֹזֶן. Key to this word is the phrase by Jesus “he who has an ear, let him hear” (Mat 11:15; 13:9,43; Mark 4:9, 23; 7:16; Luke 8:8; 14:35; Rev 2:7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22; 13:9). The Morrish Bible Dictionary states it means that “spiritual discernment was needed to catch the meaning of what was uttered.” This fact is not in question, but only this remains to be asked: a spiritual discernment of what, since it is assumed that a certain kind of scriptural truth is implied.
This scriptural truth brought to the ear of spiritual discernment by Jesus can be known from Matthew 10:27, where “ear” is used for this organ of receiving secrets, but particularly oracular secrets, which are to be revealed by the gospel, the good news of fulfillment: “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.”
We know this because the context deals with the persecution of the evangelists as they expound the meaning of the oracles as taught by Christ to the world. This gospel is not an assertion from sentiment, and this fact is the primary “secret” that is to be revealed and not grasped by those who have no regard for them. The dangers for the evangelist, which are enumerated in this passage, do not come from preaching that Christ alone saves, or any such mere religious sentiment, but that this assertion is backed by historical events that cannot be denied, which is morally binding on the conscience. All key contextual words here are prophetic ones: “the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mat 10:7), healing, cleansing, raising the dead, casting out of devils (Mat 10:8) as signs of Messiah’s ministry denoting the spiritual purifying by the oracles; the evangelists who are sent out are called prophets (Mat 10:41).
Expanding this context to the previous chapter, in Matthew 9:36 the “sheep with no shepherd” is a Messianic allusion to the prophecy of Zechariah 11; the and the “harvest” of 37 and 38 is an eschatological event. The ear takes in the oracular mysteries in the form of Christ/biblical fulfillments, but what is amazing is that the spiritual discernment to hear is mainly that of the world’s failure to hear and attach the full implications of the last part of that clause, preferring to keep Christ as a religious figure defined as not necessarily connected to that particular word in evangelism, which is what we have seen in the Church Age.
In the OT the signification of the ear track the same:
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