What Does Isaiah 42:18 Mean?
Hear and respond, you who are deaf. Look, you who are blind, so that you may see.
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, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.THE KEY
The verse calls perception possible at the very point where it seems impossible: hear, look, and then see.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the places in you that feel unable to take in what is present. It calls you to hear and direct your gaze, then holds seeing as something that can emerge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you cannot perceive now is forever beyond your perception.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿû
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed, respond.
“Hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿû. The imperative shimʿû carries the sense of listening and responding, not only sound reaching the ear. The call lands at the very point the line names as deaf, beginning a movement from hearing toward sight.
ALSO GROWS
shemuʿāh: Report, tidings, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root can name what is heard as a report, linking hearing with receiving a message.
shōmēaʿ: One who hears or listens.
שׁוֹמֵעַ
This form names the listener, bringing the verse’s call into relationship with the one who receives it.
הַבִּיטוּ
habbîṭû
GROWS FROM
נבט
Look toward, regard, gaze.
“look” in this verse is habbîṭû. The verse uses a verb of directed attention before it uses the verb for seeing. Its wording moves from turning the gaze toward something to perception that follows.
ALSO GROWS
habbēṭ: Look, gaze; a command to look.
הַבֵּט
This imperative form shows the root as a directed act of looking.
mabbîṭ: One who looks or regards.
מַבִּיט
This form names the one directing a gaze, echoing the verse’s address to those called to look.
לִרְאוֹת
lirʾôt
GROWS FROM
ראה
See, perceive, appear.
“Look” and “see” come from different roots here: one directs the gaze; the other names seeing. The root also gives words for a seer and for an appearance or vision, tying perception to what becomes visible.
ALSO GROWS
roʾeh: Seer; one who sees.
רֹאֶה
The root can name the perceiver, not only the act of sight.
marʾeh: Appearance, vision.
מַרְאֶה
This branch names what is seen, connecting perception with what comes into view.
herʾah: Showed; caused someone to see.
הֶרְאָה
This form extends the root from seeing to making something visible to another.
THE PATTERN
What seems closed in perception can be addressed as something capable of opening.
Then the eyes of the blind open, and the ears of the deaf open.But Flourishing are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.THE THREAD
Make the heart of this people fat, make their ears heavy, and smear over their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and discern with their heart, and turn back, and be healed.This verse shares שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, hear and respond) and רָאָה (raʾah, see) with Isaiah 42:18. Here the same faculties are described as shut or weighed down, placing the call to hear and see beside the mystery of perception being closed.
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