What Does Isaiah 39:5 Mean?

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, Hear and respond to the word of the LORD of hosts.

Isaiah 39:5 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:

THE KEY

Here, hearing is already a response to the word, not merely the receipt of sound.

THE MEANING

You are addressed by a word from the LORD of hosts, and hearing it means receiving it with the readiness to respond. The verse places that attentive hearing before the message unfolds.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that hearing the word is passive exposure; here, hearing includes heed and response.

THE ROOT

שְׁמַע

shema

GROWS FROM

שמע

sh-m-ʿ

Hear, listen, heed, and respond.

“Hear and respond” in this verse is shema. The Hebrew verb carries more than sound reaching the ear: it joins hearing with heed and response. The command makes receptivity the first movement in meeting the word.

ALSO GROWS

shema: Hear, heed, respond.

שְׁמַע

This imperative uses the root directly, making hearing itself a responsive act.

shemu'ah: Report, tidings, something heard.

שְׁמוּעָה

The same root names both hearing and what is heard, linking attentive reception to a message with substance.

דְּבַר

devar

GROWS FROM

דבר

d-b-r

Speak; a spoken word or matter.

The Hebrew word can refer to speech and to the matter at hand. The LORD’s word is therefore not only something heard; it is a matter that reaches the reader.

ALSO GROWS

davar: Word, matter, thing.

דָּבָר

Its range lets the word be heard as a concrete matter, not sound alone.

dibber: He spoke.

דִּבֵּר

This verbal branch shows the spoken act at the root of the message Isaiah names.

THE PATTERN

Scriptural hearing joins receiving a word with responding to it.

Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.

Deuteronomy 6:4 · SDVThe call to hear opens with the same Hebrew verb, joining attention to the declaration that follows.

And he said, Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.

Mark 4:9 · SDVHearing is presented as an active reception of what is being said.

The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the middle of the garden of God.

Revelation 2:7 · SDVThe call to hear leads into a response and its consequence.

THE THREAD

Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.

Deuteronomy 6:4 · SDV

Both verses use ⁨שְׁמַע⁩ (shema, hear and respond), making the shared root visible beneath the English. Deuteronomy’s opening call shows the same pattern: hearing receives the word that follows.

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