What Does Exodus 24:3 Mean?
And Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD has said we will do.
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
And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “words” and the verb “hath said” share a root that also names a matter, so the people’s reply joins the LORD’s speech to the life they promise to enact.
THE MEANING
This passage meets you where hearing becomes response: the LORD’s words are received as something to enact together. What is spoken is not left as information; the reply gives it a place in shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that agreement alone completes a response to God’s words; here, the answer includes doing.
THE ROOT
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak; דָּבָר (dābār) can mean a spoken word, a matter, or an affair.
The verse uses this root for both “words” and “hath said,” making the people’s reply echo the speech it receives. Since dābār can also name a matter, the words are not only spoken statements: they concern what takes shape in life.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: he spoke
דִּבֶּר
This is the root’s verb in “which the LORD hath said,” echoing the “words” the people promise to enact.
dābār: word, matter, or affair
דָּבָר
The word can name both speech and a matter, linking what is said with what enters shared life.
נַעֲשֶׂה
naʿaseh
GROWS FROM
ע־ש־ה
To do or make.
The people answer with a form meaning “we will do” or “we will make.” Their response gives the LORD’s words a concrete edge: they promise enactment, not assent alone.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāsāh: to do or make
עָשָׂה
This is the verb’s root form, carrying the people’s answer from speech into action.
maʿăśeh: deed, work, or doing
מַעֲשֶׂה
This related noun names the action that the people’s promise commits them to.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly joins receiving God’s speech with embodying it in action.
Draw near, and hear all that the LORD our God will say, and speak to us all that the LORD our God will speak to you. We will hear and respond, and we will do it.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.His mother said to the servants, Whatever he says to you, do it.THE THREAD
And he took the scroll of the covenant, and called it out in the ears of the people, and they said, All that the LORD has said we will do, and we will hear and respond.This verse repeats the dabar root (ד־ב־ר, dabar, “speak/word”) in “hath said” and the asah root (ע־ש־ה, ʿasah, “do/make”) in “will we do.” It adds nishmaʿ (נִשְׁמָע, “we will hear/respond”), joining reception and enactment in one answer.
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