If so, did you know we do this reading aloud / muttering naturally when we're trying really hard to focus on and understand something?

This is actually how we should be reading the Bible. Let me explain.

The very idea of God suggests that He has complex and layered ideas to communicate with His creation. This is where Psalm 1:2's idea of meditating on God's Law comes in.

You can only gain a greater overall understanding of these layered, complex, and challenging scriptures if you meditate on what you're reading.

But...it's important that we don't understand meditation to mean an emptying of the mind or anything like that.

The Hebrew word used for meditating (הָגָה hagah) actually describes what a bear or lion does over its prey, or what doves do up in little rock crevices or in the eaves of a building. There's this sense of hagah being a quiet, low, primal, guttural sound you make while you're concentrating on something.

Like when we read hard-to-understand instructions.

This also ties into the idea of "wrestling" with God and recognizing that sometimes, success could just be coming away from something you read with an ambiguity that you need to wrestle with for the rest of the week.

God's Word is meant for so much more than "just reading".

May your delight be in the Law of the Lord, and may you meditate on it day and night.