What Does 1 Corinthians 14:21 Mean?
In the instruction it is written, "With other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people," and even so they will not hear me, says the LORD.
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.
King James wording
King James Version
In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.THE KEY
A foreign voice can become the sign of a deeper deafness: speech arrives, yet the speaker is not received.
THE MEANING
The verse names the gap between sound reaching you and receiving what is said: speech in other tongues can be present while the speaker remains unheard. Its living edge is that language alone does not guarantee recognition; a voice can reach the ear while its meaning is refused.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that exposure to words or a sign automatically means receiving their meaning.
THE ROOT
εἰσακούσονται
eisakousontai
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
Hear, listen, heed.
The verb is built on ἀκούω (akouō), “to hear or listen,” and its force here is to listen to or heed the speaker. Greek carries that hearing-seed into words for obeying and for disregarding, showing that hearing reaches beyond sound to what is received.
ALSO GROWS
hypakouō: Obey, heed.
ὑπακούω
This compound carries the same hearing-root into response: receiving a voice can lead to obedience.
parakouō: Disregard, fail to heed.
παρακούω
The same hearing-root can name a failure to receive what is heard, illuminating the refusal in “will they not hear me.”
THE PATTERN
In scripture, speech can reach the ear without being received as a word.
To them he said, This is the setting down, set the weary down; and this is the stillness; but they would not hear and respond.Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word.Hard-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always fall against the Set-Apart Breath, as your fathers did, so also you.THE THREAD
For the heart of this people has grown thick, and with their ears they hear heavily, and they have shut their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and gather it together with their heart, and turn back, and I would heal them.Acts 28:27 uses the same Greek hearing-root, ἀκούω (akouō), and links the ears with the heart’s understanding. It opens this verse further: hearing means more than sound arriving; it reaches toward perception and reception.
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