What Does 1 Samuel 3:10 Mean?
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.
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
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.THE KEY
The repeated name is met by a hearing that is already an answer: here, listening means responsive availability.
THE MEANING
The LORD comes near, stands, and calls Samuel by name twice; the answer makes room for the voice to speak. The verse speaks now through this moment of address, where hearing is a present relation and readiness to respond. The repeated name makes the encounter personal before any instruction is given.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that hearing is merely sound reaching the ear: Samuel’s answer shows it as attention already turned toward response.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמֵעַ
shomeaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“hears and responds” in this verse is shomeaʿ. English “heareth” can sound like sound simply entering the ear, while שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear, listen, respond) carries the sense of attentive heeding. Samuel’s answer performs that hearing: his attention is already turned toward the voice. The root holds reception and response together.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen; heed (imperative).
שְׁמַע
This root’s imperative opens “Hear, O Israel”; here, the call to hear becomes Samuel’s direct answer to a personal address.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings; what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root can name what is received as well as the act of hearing it, linking the LORD’s call with Samuel’s reception of the message.
THE PATTERN
Biblical hearing is a response that carries the received word into action.
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.The Hebrew root behind “heareth” here returns in “hearken” and “obeying” there, binding hearing to responsive action. Samuel’s first answer is already a whole posture of listening, not merely a cue for the next words.
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