What Does Deuteronomy 6:4 Mean?

Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.

Deuteronomy 6:4 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

THE KEY

The verse’s first word already asks for a response: biblical hearing is listening that answers the one LORD.

THE MEANING

You are addressed now to hear and respond to the LORD, your God. The LORD is one; the verse holds your attention and God’s oneness together.

THE ROOT

שְׁמַע

shema

GROWS FROM

שמע

To hear, listen, and heed.

“Hear and respond” in this verse is shema. English can make hearing sound like sound merely entering the ears, but ⁨שְׁמַע⁩ calls for attentive reception that answers. The verse begins by gathering hearing and response around the one LORD.

ALSO GROWS

shama: To hear or heed.

שָׁמַע

The verb shows that the command is attentive listening, not just registering sound.

shomea: One who hears; a hearer or listener.

שֹׁמֵעַ

The same root names the person as one who listens, keeping attention central to the verse.

shemuah: A report or message heard.

שְׁמוּעָה

The root also reaches from hearing to what is heard and received.

THE PATTERN

Scripture presents hearing as attentive reception that calls for a response.

And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.

1 Samuel 3:10 · SDVThe answer “Speak” makes clear that hearing is a readiness to receive and respond.

For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear and respond to his voice.

Psalm 95:7 · SDVHearing his voice is set in the present: “To day,” as an immediate encounter.

But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.

James 1:22 · SDVThe verse distinguishes responsive hearing from hearing that stops at sound.

THE THREAD

And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.

1 Samuel 3:10 · SDV

The same root, ⁨שמע⁩, appears in “heareth”: Samuel’s hearing is joined to the answer, “Speak.” Deuteronomy uses that verb to call you into attentive hearing and response before naming the LORD’s oneness.

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