Is it inner hearing or not?

Yes — that is a very plausible mystical reading of Book of Proverbs 20:12, especially when interpreted through contemplative traditions.

The verse reads roughly:

“The hearing ear and the seeing eye —

the Lord has made them both.”

Hebrew:

• אֹזֶן שֹׁמַעַת (ozen shoma‘at) = “hearing ear”

• וְעַיִן רֹאָה (ve-ayin ro’ah) = “seeing eye”

Notice:

the Hebrew is slightly intensified:

• not merely “ear” but “hearing ear”

• not merely “eye” but “seeing eye”

This invites symbolic interpretation.

Literal level

At the plain wisdom-literature level, the verse means:

• God created human faculties of perception.

• Therefore humans should perceive wisely.

• Hearing truth and seeing reality are divine gifts.

This fits Proverbs’ general themes:

• discernment,

• attention,

• wisdom,

• moral perception.

But the Hebrew allows deeper readings

Biblical Hebrew often uses sensory language metaphorically:

Sense faculty

Spiritual meaning

hearing

obedience, receptivity

seeing

understanding, revelation

blindness

spiritual ignorance

deafness

refusal of truth

So already inside the Hebrew Bible:

• hearing and seeing are more than physical acts.

Inner hearing in biblical tradition

There is a long trajectory toward:

• inward hearing,

• spiritual audition,

• revelation.

Examples:

“Hear, O Israel…”

(Hebrew Shema)

This means more than sound reception.

It means:

• inward attentiveness,

• receptivity to divine truth.

Prophets “hear” the word of God inwardly.

Inner sight in biblical tradition

Likewise:

• prophets “see” visions,

• wisdom literature speaks of enlightened eyes,

• apocalyptic texts describe visionary seeing.

Examples:

• Ezekiel

• Daniel

• Zechariah

The “seer” in ancient Israel was literally:

• ro’eh = one who sees.

Mystical traditions took this farther

Jewish mysticism, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and Sant traditions often interpreted these senses inwardly.

Thus:

• outer hearing ↔ inner hearing

• outer sight ↔ inner sight

Comparison to Sant Mat and Sufi concepts

Your intuition parallels:

• Shabd / inner sound current

• inner light

• spiritual audition

• visionary perception

In many contemplative systems:

Outer faculty

Inner faculty

eye

spiritual vision

ear

spiritual hearing

Thus mystical interpreters might read Proverbs 20:12 as implying:

God created not only physical perception but capacities for spiritual perception.

Hebrew nuances

The participles are interesting:

• shoma‘at = actively hearing/listening

• ro’ah = actively seeing/perceiving

These are dynamic faculties.

Not passive organs —

living awareness.

Ancient Near Eastern background

In the biblical world:

• true perception was moral and spiritual,

  
  

  not merely sensory.

A person could:

• physically see yet be blind,

• physically hear yet not hear.

This becomes a central prophetic criticism.

For example:

“Having eyes, they do not see; having ears, they do not hear.”

So Proverbs may already hint:

genuine perception is a divine gift.

Christian mystical interpretation

Later Christian contemplatives interpreted such verses inwardly:

• “eyes of the heart”

• “inner ear”

• “spiritual senses”

Especially:

• Origen

• Augustine of Hippo

• medieval mystics

• Hesychasts

They taught:

• inner illumination,

• hearing the divine Logos,

• contemplative perception.

Sufi parallels

Sufis similarly speak of:

• the “ear of the heart”

• “seeing with the eye of the heart”

Arabic:

• basira = inner sight

The Quran repeatedly contrasts:

• outward blindness

  
  

  with

• blindness of the heart.

So your interpretation is quite defensible

Not necessarily as the sole original meaning —

Proverbs is still wisdom literature —

but as a contemplative reading rooted in longstanding symbolic traditions.

In mystical interpretation the verse can imply:

God gave humanity capacities for both outer and inner perception.

And many contemplative traditions would say:

• meditation,

• prayer,

• silence,

• purification,

• receptivity,

awaken the deeper forms of hearing and seeing.