What Does Hebrews 3:15 Mean?
While it is said, Today, if you will hear and respond to his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the embittering.
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
While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.THE KEY
The warning is not against failing to hear the voice, but against hearing it while the inner self grows rigid against it.
THE MEANING
His voice is present today, and hearing reaches the point where the heart either receives what it hears or stiffens against it. The verse names the danger as resistance forming in the very place where the voice is heard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that exposure to a true voice means the heart has received it; hearing can happen alongside inward resistance.
THE ROOT
σκληρύνητε
sklērynēte
GROWS FROM
σκληρ
sklēr
hard, stiff, resistant
“do not harden” in this verse is sklērynēte. The verb is built on the word for hard or harsh; the image is an inward self becoming rigid, not simply a passing feeling. The phrase “harden your hearts” shows that resistance can coexist with hearing: the voice arrives while the center stays closed.
ALSO GROWS
sklēros: hard, harsh
σκληρός
It shares the same consonants and shows the quality from which the verb “harden” grows.
sklērotēs: hardness, severity
σκληρότης
It names the settled condition the warning describes.
sklērynō: to harden, make hard
σκληρύνω
It is the verb’s lexical form and makes clear that the verse describes a movement into resistance.
ἀκούσητε
akousēte
GROWS FROM
ἀκου
akou
hear, listen
“hear and respond to his voice” in this verse is akousēte. Here Greek ἀκούω (akouō, hear) renders the Hebrew שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, hear and respond) in Psalm 95:7, carrying hearing toward response. The next clause exposes the gap: the voice can be heard while the heart remains resistant.
ALSO GROWS
akouō: hear, listen
ἀκούω
This is the verb’s lexical form and the source of the verse’s word for hearing.
akoē: hearing; a report
ἀκοή
It shares the hearing stem and can name both the act of hearing and what is heard.
hypakoē: obedience, attentive response
ὑπακοή
Built with the same hearing stem, it shows how hearing can extend into response.
καρδίας
kardias
GROWS FROM
καρδ
kard
heart, the inward center
“hearts” in this verse is kardias. καρδία (kardia, heart) names the inward center, not only emotion. With “harden” modifying it, the verse locates resistance where attention, desire, and response meet.
ALSO GROWS
kardia: heart, inward center
καρδία
This is the singular form of the word translated “hearts” in the verse.
kardiognōstēs: knower of hearts
καρδιογνώστης
The compound keeps the same heart root and presents it as the inward place that can be known.
sklērokardia: hardness of heart
σκληροκαρδία
This compound joins the same hard and heart roots, making explicit the condition Hebrews describes.
THE PATTERN
A voice can reach the ear while the inward center remains closed to what it hears.
Do not stiffen your heart, as at Meribah, the striving, as on the day of Massah, the testing place, in the wilderness.Hard-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always fall against the Set-Apart Breath, as your fathers did, so also you.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
do not harden your hearts, as in the embittering, in the day of the testing in the wilderness,This verse repeats the same Greek verb, σκληρύνητε (sklērynēte, harden), so hardness is the very mechanism named in the warning of verse 15. The wilderness image gives “as in the provocation” its immediate shape.
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