What Does Hebrews 3:7 Mean?
Therefore, as the Set-Apart Breath says, Today, if you will hear and respond to his voice,
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
Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,THE KEY
Today turns hearing into a living threshold: the Set-Apart Breath speaks now, and the voice meets the reader in the present.
THE MEANING
The Set-Apart Breath speaks into this day, where the voice can be received. Hearing is more than sound reaching the ear; it opens toward response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that the divine voice belongs only to a past moment or a future season; this verse places its invitation in today.
THE ROOT
ἀκούσητε
akousēte from akoúō
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
hear, listen
“hear and respond to his voice” in this verse is akousēte from akoúō. Hebrews uses the Greek word for hearing, but the quoted line comes from Psalm 95:7, where the Hebrew is תִּשְׁמְעוּ (tishme’u), from שָׁמַע (shama, hear and heed). That source-word brings response into the summons: hearing is a voice received, not sound merely passing by.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: hearing; report
ἀκοή
This related noun links hearing with what is received and carried as a message.
hypakoúō: listen to; obey
ὑπακούω
This compound keeps the same hearing stem and shows how listening can become a response.
πνεῦμα ἅγιον
pneuma hagion
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
breath; moving air; to blow
Pneuma can name breath, moving air, and the living Spirit; these meanings belong to one word-family. The voice in this verse comes from the Set-Apart Breath and reaches the reader in the immediacy of today.
ALSO GROWS
pnéō: blow; breathe
πνέω
The verb keeps the root’s sense of breath in motion.
pnoē: breath; blast
πνοή
This related noun makes the breath in pneuma tangible as the air that moves.
THE PATTERN
The living voice arrives in the present, and hearing opens into response.
That you may love the LORD your God, and that you may hear and respond to his voice, and that you may cling to him; for he is your life, and the lengthening of your days; that you may settle upon the ground the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
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 has תִּשְׁמְעוּ (tishme’u), from שָׁמַע (shama, hear and heed), beneath the Greek hearing-word in Hebrews. The shared summons carries hearing toward response, and both verses place it in today.
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