What Does Deuteronomy 21:18 Mean?
If a man has a son who turns aside and is rebellious, who does not hear and respond to the voice of his father or to the voice of his mother, and when they straighten him, he does not hear and respond to them.
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
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:THE KEY
The verse repeats the root שָׁמַע (shama, “hear and heed”) on both sides of parental correction, making the crisis a refusal that persists after instruction.
THE MEANING
You encounter a son who rejects both parents’ voices even after they discipline him. The next lines carry this refusal into a public execution, keeping the passage’s violence in view rather than turning it into a harmless metaphor.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמַע
yishmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“hear and respond” in this verse is yishmaʿ. The verse uses שָׁמַע (shama, “hear and heed”) first for the son’s refusal to hear his parents’ voice and then for his refusal to listen after correction. English can make “obey” and “hearken” sound like separate failures; the Hebrew repeats one root through both stages.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; listen.
שְׁמַע
The same root opens Deuteronomy 6:4, where hearing Israel’s defining call carries the sense of receiving and responding.
lishmoa: To listen or obey.
לִשְׁמֹעַ
In 1 Samuel 15:22 this root appears in language about obeying the LORD’s voice, making the link between hearing and response explicit.
יִסְּרוּ
yisseru
GROWS FROM
יסר
Discipline, instruct, correct.
“straighten” in this verse is yisseru. The root can describe correction as instruction meant to shape a response. Here that correction is followed by refusal to hear, placing instruction and its failure side by side.
ALSO GROWS
yeyasser: To discipline or correct.
יְיַסֵּר
Deuteronomy 8:5 uses this root for a father’s correction of his son, echoing the family relationship in this verse.
musar: Instruction or discipline.
מוּסָר
Proverbs 1:2 uses the noun from this root for instruction, showing the teaching dimension carried by the word.
סוֹרֵר
sorer
GROWS FROM
סרר
Be stubborn; turn aside.
“turns aside” in this verse is sorer. The English pair “stubborn and rebellious” brings together two distinct Hebrew roots: סוֹרֵר (sorer, “stubborn, wayward”) comes from סָרַר (sarar, “be stubborn, turn aside”), while מוֹרֶה (moreh, “rebellious”) comes from מָרָה (marah, “rebel”). The wording presents the son’s condition as both a wayward course and defiance.
ALSO GROWS
sarar: To be stubborn or turn aside.
סָרַר
The verb exposes the directional image beneath “stubborn”: a course that keeps turning away.
sorerah: Stubborn or backsliding.
סֹרֵרָה
Hosea 4:16 uses this form for Israel as a stubborn heifer, carrying the same root’s picture of persistent resistance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats hearing as complete when a voice is received and answered, making refusal visible in what follows.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Hear and respond, my son, to the straightening of your father, and do not let go of your mother's instruction.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 behind “obey” and “hearken” here comes from שָׁמַע (shama, “hear and heed”), the same root repeated in Deuteronomy 21:18. This verse states the connection directly: hearing the voice and responding to it belong together.
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