What Does 1 Chronicles 17:20 Mean?

O LORD, there is none like you, and there is no God beside you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

1 Chronicles 17:20 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

O LORD, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

THE KEY

God’s uniqueness reaches you through hearing: the Hebrew word also branches toward hearing that responds.

THE MEANING

You meet a God with no equal and no rival. The confession reaches you as something heard and received, so testimony becomes the way this truth enters your awareness.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that God is one power among peers, with an equal standing beside him.

THE ROOT

שָׁמַעְנוּ

shamaʿnu

GROWS FROM

שמע

Hear, listen; in some contexts, hear and respond.

English “heard” can sound like passive receipt of a report, but ⁨שָׁמַע⁩ (shamaʿ, “hear, listen”) also branches toward hearing that responds. The verse holds testimony about God’s uniqueness close to the possibility of receiving it as a living encounter.

ALSO GROWS

shemaʿ: Hear and respond.

שְׁמַע

This branch shows that hearing can open into a response, even as the verse presents the claim of God’s uniqueness as received testimony.

shemuʿah: Report, tidings.

שְׁמוּעָה

This branch links hearing with the message carried to others, illuminating how the confession reaches the reader through testimony.

THE PATTERN

God’s uniqueness is confessed by naming the absence of any equal or rival.

Who is like you among the mighty ones, O LORD? Who is like you, majestic in being set apart, awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders?

Exodus 15:11 · SDVThe question makes God’s uniqueness clear by asking whether any other power can compare.

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, and nothing is like your works.

Psalm 86:8 · SDVThe psalm joins God’s unmatched nature with works that have no equal.

For there is one God, and one who stands in the middle between God and humankind, the human Jesus, the Anointed One.

1 Timothy 2:5 · SDVThe confession of one God carries the same pattern of singularity into the New Testament.

THE THREAD

Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.

Deuteronomy 6:4 · SDV

“Hear” here is ⁨שְׁמַע⁩ (shemaʿ, “hear and respond”), from the same root as “heard” in this verse. The shared root links hearing God’s oneness with receiving that confession as something that can call forth a response.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us