What Does Deuteronomy 15:5 Mean?
Only if you surely hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, to guard, to do all these commands that I command you today.
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
Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.THE KEY
The verse defines hearing God’s voice by what it sets in motion: a guarded life that does what it hears.
THE MEANING
The voice meets you now with a condition: hearing it means keeping its words and carrying them into action. The verse holds listening and doing together as one response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing is complete once the words have reached your ears; here, hearing continues into action.
THE ROOT
שָׁמוֹעַ
shāmoaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, and heed; in this context, hear and respond.
“surely hear and respond” in this verse is shāmoaʿ. The Hebrew repeats the idea as “hearing, you shall hear,” intensifying the call. The root holds hearing and responsive heed together, so keeping and doing reveal what this hearing becomes.
ALSO GROWS
shomeaʿ: One who hears; a hearer or listener.
שֹׁמֵעַ
The hearer is defined by receiving the voice, which this verse carries forward into response.
shemuʿah: A report or message that is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The voice is not mere sound; what is heard becomes a message to respond to.
לִשְׁמֹר
lishmor
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
sh-m-r
Guard, keep, or watch over.
“guard” in this verse is lishmor. “Observe” here carries the sense of guarding what is heard. The verse links that keeping with doing: the response watches over the words by putting them into practice.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A keeper, guardian, or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
Keeping the commandments is an active guarding, not simply noticing them.
mishmeret: A charge or guarded duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The root can name what is entrusted to someone to keep, giving “observe to do” the shape of faithful care.
THE PATTERN
Hearing God’s word becomes complete in the response that keeps and does it.
And it shall be, if you truly hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, to guard and to do all his commandments which I command you this day, that the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.But he said, Rather, flourishing are those who hear and respond to the word of God and guard it.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.“Hear” is שׁמע (shema), the same root behind “hearken” here. Deuteronomy 6:4 names hearing; this verse shows that same hearing taking shape as keeping and doing.
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