The Mekhilta preserves a striking teaching about the limits of human knowledge: seven things are permanently hidden from the eyes of every person. No amount of wisdom, prophecy, or investigation can reveal them.
First is the day of death. No one knows when their time will come. Second is the day of consolation — the moment when suffering will finally end and comfort will arrive. Third is the depth of judgment, meaning the true weight of divine justice and how God evaluates each soul. Fourth is the source of one's livelihood. A person never fully knows where their sustenance will come from tomorrow.
Fifth is what lies in the heart of one's neighbor. No matter how well you know someone, their innermost thoughts remain opaque. Sixth is the restoration of the kingdom of the house of David — the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Davidic monarchy. And seventh is the downfall of the "guilty kingdom," a veiled reference to Rome, the empire that destroyed the Temple.
The list moves from the deeply personal to the cosmic. It begins with individual anxieties — death, income, the inscrutability of others — and ends with the great national hopes of Israel. The rabbis are saying that these seven mysteries belong to God alone. Human beings must live with uncertainty on every scale, from the most intimate to the most world-historical. And that uncertainty, the Mekhilta implies, is itself a form of faith.