What Does 2 Kings 17:14 Mean?
Yet they would not hear and respond, but stiffened their necks, like the neck of their fathers, who did not lean their weight on the LORD their God.
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
Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God.THE KEY
The verse makes disbelief bodily: refusing to hear becomes a neck that will not turn, and trust that will not bear weight.
THE MEANING
This names a pattern active now: words can reach the ear while a person refuses their call for response. Resistance takes shape as a neck that will not yield or turn, while trust in the LORD is withheld. The posture repeats when what is heard meets the same refusal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it dissolves is that receiving the words is the same as hearing them: the verse treats refusal to respond as refusal to hear.
THE ROOT
שָׁמְעוּ
shāmeʿû
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, and, where response is implied, heed.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shāmeʿû. Shama is more than sound reaching an ear; it carries hearing that answers. Beside the hardened neck, “would not hear” names a refusal of response, not a shortage of information.
ALSO GROWS
Shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
The verse describes a refusal to enter the responsive hearing named by this word.
Mishma'at: Obedience, discipline.
מִשְׁמַעַת
Its connection to hearing makes visible the response that the people withhold.
וַיַּקְשׁוּ
vayyaqshû
GROWS FROM
קשה
Be hard, difficult, or severe.
“stiffened” in this verse is vayyaqshû. The root gives the resistance a physical image: a neck set against movement. The verse’s “hardened neck” makes refusal feel like a posture that will not yield or turn.
ALSO GROWS
Qasheh: Hard, difficult, severe.
קָשֶׁה
The same root links the fixed neck to hardness and difficulty yielding.
Qesheh-oref: Stiff-necked; hard of neck.
קְשֵׁה־עֹרֶף
This Hebrew phrase makes the verse’s image explicit: resistance is pictured in the unyielding neck.
הֶאֱמִינוּ
heʾĕmînû
GROWS FROM
אמן
Be firm, steady, or reliable; lean on something as trustworthy.
“lean their weight on” in this verse is heʾĕmînû. “Did not believe” carries the sense of withholding trust, of not leaning one’s weight on the LORD as firm. Set beside the stiffened neck, unbelief appears as both inner distrust and bodily resistance.
ALSO GROWS
Emunah: Trust, steadiness; leaning one’s full weight on what is trusted.
אֱמוּנָה
It names the trust the fathers do not place in the LORD.
Amen: Firmly; truly; so be it.
אָמֵן
The word’s sense of firmness echoes the steadiness absent from their trust.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts hearing as responsive turning: refusal to answer the word hardens into a posture.
So cut the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stiff-necked.But they did not hear and respond to me, nor bend their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did worse than their fathers.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The word translated “Hear” shares the Hebrew root שמע (shama) with “hear” in this verse. Deuteronomy opens with the call; Kings describes people who refuse that responsive hearing.
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