What Does Isaiah 28:14 Mean?
Therefore, hear and respond to the word of the LORD, you mockers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
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 hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.THE KEY
The verse joins scorn to rule, showing contempt as a public force that shapes what a people can hear.
THE MEANING
You hear the word of the LORD while scorn occupies public authority. The verse binds contempt to rule: what leaders mock can become what a people are taught to dismiss. Its address presses on whether the word is received directly or filtered through derision.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that ridicule is harmless because it is only words: here, scorn belongs to those who rule a people.
THE ROOT
אַנְשֵׁי לָצוֹן
ʾanšê lāṣôn
GROWS FROM
לוץ
lûṣ
To mock or scoff; a related form also means to interpret.
“mockers” in this verse is ʾanšê lāṣôn. The verse calls them “men of scoffing,” making contempt part of their public identity. A related form, מֵלִיץ (mēlîṣ), means “interpreter”: the same speech-root can describe mediating a message or meeting it with mockery.
ALSO GROWS
lēṣ: Scoffer, mocker
לֵץ
This form names the person whose response to a message is derision.
mēlîṣ: Interpreter, one who mediates speech
מֵלִיץ
Its related sense places the root at the point where speech is carried across, or, in this verse, dismissed by those with public influence.
דְּבַר־יְהוָה
dĕvar-YHWH
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speech, word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר (dāḇār) can mean both “word” and “matter” or “thing.” The word being heard is not just sound: speech and what is at stake in that speech meet in the same Hebrew form.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
Its range lets “the word of the LORD” carry both utterance and substance.
dibber: Spoke, spoke with
דִּבֵּר
The verbal branch connects the word to the act of speaking it.
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿû
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, or heed.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿû. The command to hear carries a response within it: it concerns what is received and heeded, not sound alone. That makes the rulers’ scorn a direct obstruction to the posture the verse calls for.
ALSO GROWS
šāmaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
The root verb shows that hearing can extend into attending and responding.
šĕmûʿāh: Report, tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows the root also names what is heard and carried as a report.
THE PATTERN
Authority shapes what a people can hear when leaders scorn or withhold the word and knowledge.
How long, you open ones, do you cling to your openness? And the scorners desire their mockery, and fools hate knowledge?Woe to you, experts in the instruction! For you have lifted away the key of knowing. You yourselves did not enter, and those who were entering, you blocked.Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come, walking after their own cravings,THE THREAD
Flourishing is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of those who miss the mark, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers.Isaiah’s “men of scoffing” and the Psalm’s “scornful” share the root לוץ (lûṣ), “to mock or scoff.” Isaiah places scorn among those who rule a people; the Psalm pictures it as a seat someone occupies.
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