What Does Daniel 9:6 Mean?
Nor have we heard and responded to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your nature to our kings, our chiefs, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
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
Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.THE KEY
The prophets speak in God’s nature; the broken link is not between voice and ear, but between hearing and response.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the present gap between a word reaching the ear and becoming a response. That fracture can span every level: rulers, elders, and the whole people may all hear without responding. A word spoken in God’s nature can still be left unanswered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that being exposed to a true word means you have received it. A message can reach an entire community while every level leaves it unanswered.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַע
shama
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“heard and responded” in this verse is shama. The Hebrew root carries hearing toward heedful response; sound reaching the ear is not yet the whole act. The prophets speak בִּשְׁמֶךָ (bishmekha, “in your name,” understood as “in your nature”), so the refusal leaves that nature unanswered.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This imperative uses the same root and makes clear that hearing can carry a response within it.
shemu’ah: A report, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what reaches the ear; beside the responsive sense of shama, it brings the verse’s gap between receiving a report and answering it into view.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, hearing reaches its fullness when the word receives a response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.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.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.Daniel’s “hearkened” and Deuteronomy’s “Hear” share שָׁמַע (shama, “hear and respond”). Deuteronomy sounds the call; Daniel names what it is for that call to remain unanswered.
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