To understand deeply, appreciate, agree with. "Yeah, I dig it, man." "Can you dig it?" Carries a flavor of mutual understanding, countercultural solidarity, hip recognition. Dated but still immediately recognizable as 1960s-70s Boomer.
"Dig it" claims something more than surface agreement — it asserts deep understanding. Scripture has a much stronger word for this: yada in Hebrew, "to know" with covenantal weight, the word used both of Adam "knowing" his wife (Gen 4:1) and of the LORD "knowing" His people (Amos 3:2). Real knowing is experiential, relational, committed — not merely cognitive. Jeremiah 22:16 says King Josiah "judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the LORD." To know God is to do justice. The Boomer "dig it" is a flatter version of the same instinct — that real understanding is more than data. The redemption: move from "dig it" to "know." Christians are invited into yada relationship with God, not merely intellectual assent.
Boomer jazz slang for deep agreement. Biblical "knowing" runs much deeper — relational, covenantal, committed.
"Dig" had genuine weight in its jazz-culture origin: a listener who could "dig" a solo understood the improvisation, the history, the emotion all at once. It meant engaged, educated, soul-level reception. That instinct for depth is biblical; Scripture repeatedly rejects shallow intellectual assent as insufficient. "The demons also believe — and shudder!" (James 2:19). Belief-as-data is not faith. Faith is trust, commitment, covenantal attachment. "Dig it" as casual affirmation has lost most of this weight, but the word's DNA points at something Scripture takes very seriously: real understanding is relational depth, not just head-nodding. Move from "dig" to yada.
Jeremiah 22:16 — "He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? declares the LORD."
Hosea 6:6 — "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
Philippians 3:10 — "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."
James 2:19 — "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder!"
“Dig it” reaches for deep understanding. Biblical <em>yada</em> goes further: covenantal, committed, experiential. Know God; do not merely dig the idea of Him.
“Right on, brother, I dig it. You saw the truth in that speech.”
“That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.”