What Does Isaiah 42:23 Mean?
Who among you will give ear to this? Who will bend your ear, and hear and respond for what comes after?
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
Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?THE KEY
The verse turns hearing into a three-stage passage: the ear opens, attention settles, and the word is received.
THE MEANING
This question reaches you now: words can meet your ear without becoming hearing. The verse moves from giving ear, to attending, to hearing the message with what comes next in view. The future enters the present through attentive hearing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that being exposed to a message is the same as hearing it; it distinguishes contact from attention that receives.
THE ROOT
וְיִשְׁמַע
veyishma
GROWS FROM
שמע
to hear and receive what is heard; where response is in view, to hear and respond
“hear and respond” in this verse is veyishma. English can flatten this to sound entering the ear, but שמע can hold reception and response together. The verse closes with this root after “give ear” and “hearken,” making hearing the culmination of the sequence.
ALSO GROWS
shema: hear; hear and respond
שְׁמַע
The same root opens Deuteronomy’s “Hear, O Israel,” linking hearing with receiving the words that follow.
shemuah: report, news, or tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
What is heard can become a report carried onward, connecting the verse’s hearing with the message meant for what comes next.
יַאֲזִין
yaʾazin
GROWS FROM
אזן
to give ear, to listen
“give ear” in this verse is yaʾazin. The root is also present in the Hebrew word for “ear,” so listening begins in the body. The verse then moves from an ear turned toward a voice to focused attention and finally to reception.
ALSO GROWS
ozen: ear
אֹזֶן
The shared consonants link the act of listening to the bodily faculty that receives sound.
haʾazinu: give ear, listen (plural command)
הַאֲזִינוּ
This form addresses a listening group, showing how the invitation to attend can be shared.
יַקְשִׁב
yaqshiv
GROWS FROM
קשב
to attend closely, to listen with focused attention
“bend your ear” in this verse is yaqshiv. This middle verb adds settled attention between offering the ear and hearing the message. The verse’s three verbs distinguish listening from a single passive moment.
ALSO GROWS
haqshivah: hearken, attend closely
הַקְשִׁיבָה
This imperative form makes the focused attention in the verse an active posture of listening.
maqshiv: one who listens attentively
מַקְשִׁיב
The related listening form names the person by the attention the verse asks for.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents hearing as directed attention that receives a word and carries it into response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Watch, then, how you hear and respond, for whoever has, to them will be given, and whoever has not, even what they seem to have will be lifted away from them.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Isaiah’s וְיִשְׁמַע (veyishma) and Deuteronomy’s שְׁמַע (shema) share the root שמע, “hear.” That shared word ties Isaiah’s question to the Shema: hearing is where the word is received.
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