What Does Isaiah 37:17 Mean?
Bend your ear, O LORD, and hear and respond. Open your eyes, O LORD, and see. Respond to all the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to taunt the living God.
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
Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God.THE KEY
The prayer brings the threat fully before the living God by naming both the words to be heard and the act to be seen.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the reader language for a present threat: its words and the act behind them are brought before the living God in hearing and sight. Repeating “hear” after “open your eyes” presents divine attention as fully engaged with what has been said.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A threat does not become the final word because it is spoken with authority; the verse addresses the living God as hearer and witness of the words themselves.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַע
shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed, and respond.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shema. English “hear” can sound like passive sound registration, but this Hebrew verb can carry attentive listening and response. Its repetition alongside “open your eyes” joins hearing with full perception: both the words and the act behind them are brought before God.
ALSO GROWS
shemuah: A report or piece of news; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The reproach is sent as words that can be received and recognized, not as an unseen force.
shomea: One who hears or listens.
שֹׁמֵעַ
The repeated appeal presents God as the listener asked to attend to the whole message.
שָׁלַח
shalach
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, or let go.
The reproach is described as something dispatched outward, an act with an aim. The same root also names שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, “sent”), behind Siloam, where a blind man washes and comes away seeing.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Shiloah; “sent” or “sent forth,” the name behind Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
John 9 connects Siloam with “Sent” and with restored sight, placing that sending beside the reproach sent in Isaiah.
shaluaḥ: Sent or dispatched; one who is sent.
שָׁלוּחַ
This branch makes the movement concrete: what is sent goes out from a sender, as Sennacherib’s words do here.
THE PATTERN
The living God is portrayed as taking in both the words spoken and the reality those words touch.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.The eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their cry.For the eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their pleading; but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.The Hebrew word שָׁלַח (shalach, “send forth” or “release”) in Isaiah shares its root with שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, “sent”), behind Siloam. Isaiah names words sent to reproach the living God; in John, what is sent leads a blind man to wash and come away seeing.
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