DEAFNESS
God uses the imagery of deafness to identify people who do not and will not listen to his voice because they prefer to listen to false prophets. Deafness is included in a long list of diseases and afflictions that he uses to differentiate between Old/First Covenant religionists and New Covenant disciples.

Old/First Covenant religionists do not have eyes to see or ears to hear. They have eyes to see the literal words of the Bible, but they do not have ears to hear God’s spoken voice explain the symbolic interpretations of the literal words. Thus they are both deaf and blind.

New Covenant disciples, on the other hand, do have eyes to see (i.e. read) the literal words of the Bible and ears to listen to God’s spoken voice explain the symbolic meanings of the written words because God has given that ability to them.