What Does Ephesians 6:1 Mean?
Children, hear and respond to your parents in the Lord, for this is aligned.
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
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.THE KEY
The word translated “obey” holds hearing inside it: the child’s response begins in listening, within the Lord.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now to the child-parent relationship, placing the child’s response to parents “in the Lord” and calling it right. Its word for obedience carries hearing within the response, so listening is part of what the verse names as right.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that obedience here is only outward compliance: the word keeps hearing within the response, and “in the Lord” places that response within a relationship.
THE ROOT
ὑπακούετε
hypakouete
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
To hear, listen, or give heed; the verb combines this with ὑπό (hypo), “under.”
“hear and respond” in this verse is hypakouete. English “obey” can sound like bare compliance, but the Greek word keeps hearing inside the action. The child’s response is framed as listening under the Lord, not as an empty outward motion.
ALSO GROWS
akouō: Hear, listen.
ἀκούω
This is the hearing verb at the heart of “obey,” making listening part of the word’s sense.
akoē: Hearing; a report or message heard.
ἀκοή
The same word family appears in Romans 10:17, where hearing is the way trust comes.
hypakoē: Obedience; attentive response.
ὑπακοή
This noun keeps the same link between hearing and response that the verse’s verb carries.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, hearing opens into a response that takes shape in life.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.So then trust comes out of hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.THE THREAD
So then trust comes out of hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.The word translated “hearing” is ἀκοή (akoē), from the same ἀκου- (akou-) family as “obey.” Ephesians holds hearing within a child’s response; Romans shows hearing as the way trust comes.
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