What Does Isaiah 28:23 Mean?
Give ear, and hear and respond to my voice; hear and respond to my speech.
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
Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.THE KEY
Before the teaching begins, three Hebrew verbs make listening a layered act: give the ear, attend, and hear.
THE MEANING
This verse places you at the threshold of understanding, where attention is already part of receiving. The voice and its words meet you as something to hear deeply, with response held within that hearing. The repeated invitations make listening itself the opening movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that hearing is only sound entering the ear; here, hearing joins bodily attention, close heed, and responsive reception.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen, with response included when the context calls for it.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿu. English repeats “hear,” while the Hebrew root can hold both reception and response in one word. Here it follows calls to give the ear and attend, making hearing an engaged reception of the voice.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond when the context implies response.
שְׁמַע
The same root opens the familiar “Hear, O Israel,” showing that this hearing reaches beyond sound.
shemuʿah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The branch names what arrives through hearing, linking the act of listening with the words received.
הַקְשִׁיבוּ
haqshivu
GROWS FROM
קשב
To attend and listen closely.
“hear and respond” in this verse is haqshivu. This root adds focused attention to the verse’s repeated call to hear. Beside שמע, it gives listening more depth: the voice is not merely audible, but receives close heed.
ALSO GROWS
qashav: To listen attentively or pay heed.
קָשַׁב
This is the root’s basic action, expressed here as a direct call to attend.
maqshiv: One who listens or attends.
מַקְשִׁיב
This form names the attentive listener the verse’s appeal calls into being.
הַאֲזִינוּ
haʾazinu
GROWS FROM
אזן
Ear; to give ear or listen.
“give ear” in this verse is haʾazinu. The Hebrew verb is built from the word for ear, making attention bodily and concrete. The voice is met by the faculty that receives it, before the verse turns to the words themselves.
ALSO GROWS
ozen: Ear.
אֹזֶן
The noun gives the bodily image beneath “give ye ear” its literal root.
heʾezin: To listen or give ear.
הֶאֱזִין
This verb carries the same ear-root into the act of listening named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s call to hear treats listening as attentive reception that opens the way for response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the trained, so that I might know how to sustain the faint one with a word. Morning by morning he rouses, he rouses my ear to hear and respond as the trained do.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
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.Isaiah says, “hear my voice”; Jeremiah renders this same Hebrew root as “Obey my voice.” One word holds attentive reception and response together, opening Isaiah’s summons as more than sound reaching the ear.
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