The Knowing That Remakes the Soul

Only twice in all of the New Testament does this ancient verb ísēmi appear, yet its two occurrences carry the weight of heaven’s throne. It is a knowing that does not gather information but beholds a person. The first time this verb breathes in the sacred text, it comes from the lips of the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians about a man caught up to the third heaven — whether in the body or out of the body, he himself did not ísēmi (2 Corinthians 12:2). Here the verb speaks of a knowledge so intimate that the knower and the known become nearly indistinguishable. This is not the Greek ginōskō of learning and perceiving; this is ísēmi, the verb that the sages of old might have used to describe Adam knowing Eve — a knowing that conceives life.

The Grammar of Divine Intimacy

In its grammatical form, ísēmi carries the weight of a perfect tense that has become a present — a knowing that is complete yet ever unfolding. The ancient Greek grammarians understood this verb as a defective one, borrowing its forms from eidō, the verb of seeing. And here is the mystery: to know with ísēmi is to see with a vision that has already accomplished its gaze. When Paul writes that he does not ísēmi whether the man was in the body, he is not confessing ignorance; he is confessing that the categories of earth and heaven have dissolved in the presence of divine encounter. The early church understood this verb as describing the knowledge that comes not from study but from standing in the Holy of Holies. It is the knowledge of the high priest who enters the veil and emerges changed.

The Septuagint Bridge: When Greek Meets Hebrew

In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, ísēmi appears where the Hebrew text speaks of yada — that deepest form of covenantal knowing. When the Psalmist declares that the Lord knows the way of the righteous, the Septuagint sometimes reaches for ísēmi rather than the more common ginōskō (Psalm 1:6). The difference is subtle but essential: ginōskō is the knowledge of acquaintance, while ísēmi is the knowledge of essence. The rabbis of old observed that when Scripture says the Lord knew Moses face to face, it was speaking of a knowing that transforms the one who is known. This is the bridge the Septuagint builds: every use of ísēmi carries the echo of yada, the Hebrew verb of covenant, of marriage, of the soul knitted to its Creator.

Paul's Singular Usage and Apostolic Vision

The Apostle Paul is the sole New Testament author who employs ísēmi, and he uses it only in this single passage of 2 Corinthians 12. This is no accident. Paul, the Pharisee who studied at the feet of Gamaliel, knew the weight of this verb from the Greek Scriptures. He reserves it for the moment when he speaks of a mystery that defies all other language — the third heaven, paradise, the unspeakable words that no man is permitted to utter. In using ísēmi, Paul signals that what he describes is not a vision to be analyzed but a knowing to be received. The apostolic tradition teaches that this kind of knowledge is the inheritance of every soul that has been caught up into the Messiah's presence, not in ecstatic rapture but in the daily dying to self that Paul describes earlier in the same letter.

The Knowing That Transforms Classical Thought

In the classical Greek world, ísēmi carried the sense of knowledge that is certain, settled, beyond dispute. The philosophers used it for axioms, for truths that required no proof. But the New Testament, through Paul's single use, transforms this classical certainty into something far more personal. Here ísēmi is not the knowledge of propositions but the knowledge of a person — and not just any person, but the man Christ Jesus, whose presence in the third heaven defies all earthly categories. The early Church fathers, including Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, understood this shift. They taught that the knowledge which saves is not epistēmē, the knowledge of facts, but ísēmi, the knowledge of encounter. To know God in this way is to be known by Him, and that mutual knowing is the very substance of eternal life.

The Messianic Fulfillment: Yeshua Who Knows and Is Known

Though the Gospels never place ísēmi on the lips of Yeshua, the reality this verb describes is the very heartbeat of His ministry. When the Lord declared, I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me (John 10:14), He spoke in the language of ginōskō, but the substance of His words reaches toward ísēmi. For the knowledge between the Shepherd and the sheep is not mere recognition — it is the same knowing that the Father has for the Son, a knowing that is perfect, eternal, and life-giving. The apostolic faith understands that in Yeshua, the veil between heaven and earth has been torn, and every believer is invited into the same third-heaven knowing that Paul experienced. The Messiah does not merely teach us about God; He brings us into the very knowledge of God, the ísēmi that transforms clay into glory.

Deeper Into the Septuagint: The Hebrew Roots of Celestial Knowing

Let us trace this thread further into the Septuagint, for there we find ísēmi translating the Hebrew yada in passages of profound intimacy. In the Song of Moses, when the Lord declares, See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside me (Deuteronomy 32:39), the Septuagint uses ísēmi for the knowing that God has of His own uniqueness. This is not God learning something about Himself; this is God revealing the settled certainty of His own being. And when the prophet Jeremiah writes, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom... but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me (Jeremiah 9:24), the Septuagint again reaches for ísēmi. The Hebrew behind this knowing is yada, the covenant verb, and the Greek ísēmi preserves the mystery: to know the Lord is to be joined to Him in a bond that transcends all earthly categories. This is the knowing that Paul tasted when he was caught up to the third heaven — the knowing that is not information but union.

A Call to the Knowing That Changes Everything

Beloved, you have been given access to a knowledge that the philosophers of Greece could only dream of and the sages of Israel longed to possess. The verb ísēmi appears only twice in the New Testament, but its reality fills every page of Scripture. You are not called to know about God as one knows facts from a scroll; you are called to know Him as the third heaven knows the first, as the bride knows the bridegroom, as the soul knows its Maker. This knowing is not earned by study, though study prepares the soil. It is received by surrender, by being caught up — whether in the body or out of the body — into the presence of the One who has known you from before the foundation of the world. Let this be your prayer today: not Lord, teach me, but Lord, let me know as I am known. For in that knowing, the third heaven descends, and you are remade into His likeness from glory to glory.