What Does Isaiah 1:10 Mean?
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom. Bend your ear to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah.
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
Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.THE KEY
The summons names both rulers and people as Sodom and Gomorrah, making their call to hear a confrontation with what their community has become.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word reaches you as a summons to hear with responsive attention; instruction stands before the whole community. Rulers and people alike are named as Sodom and Gomorrah, exposing a condition that no office or sacred identity can conceal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that leadership or religious belonging makes a community immune to the LORD’s scrutiny falls apart here: both rulers and people are named with the identities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, and heed; in this command, hearing carries responsive attention.
“Hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿu. The command is more than taking in sound: it calls for listening that answers. The parallel “give ear” reinforces that the whole community is summoned to attend to the LORD’s word.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: To hear, listen, or heed.
שָׁמַע
This verbal form shows how hearing can shade into a response to what is heard.
shemuʿah: A report or news, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root can name the message that reaches a listener, fitting the verse’s public summons to rulers and people.
תּוֹרָה
torah
GROWS FROM
ירה
y-r-h
To point or direct; by extension, to instruct.
Torah carries the sense of instruction that points a way. Beside the call to hear, it presents the LORD’s word as direction placed before the whole community.
ALSO GROWS
yārāh: To point or direct; to instruct.
יָרָה
The verb carries the directional sense inside the instruction named here.
moreh: A teacher or one who instructs.
מוֹרֶה
This related word shows the same root’s movement from pointing a way to guiding someone along it.
THE PATTERN
A summons to hear the LORD’s word is a summons to answer it in life.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.But this word I commanded them, saying, Hear and respond to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in every way that I have commanded you, so that it may be good for you.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
If you are willing and hear and respond, you shall eat the good of the land.The Hebrew form translated “obedient” here, וּשְׁמַעְתֶּם (u-shemaʿtem, “and you will hear or heed”), shares the root שמע (sh-m-ʿ) with “Hear” in verse 10. The opening summons unfolds into the response the root already holds: listening that takes effect.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us