What Does Isaiah 55:3 Mean?
Bend your ear and come to me. Hear and respond, and your living soul shall live. I will cut a covenant of the ages with you, the steady faithful loves of David.
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 your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.THE KEY
The “soul” that lives is the whole person, and life opens through hearing that receives and responds within a covenant of faithful love.
THE MEANING
As you turn toward God and hear, your whole living self comes alive. The covenant spans the ages, held by firm, steady faithful love bound to David’s promise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your life depends on self-sufficiency gives way: life comes through receiving and responding to God’s voice, within a promise already made firm.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shim'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen; in this use, hearing includes receiving and responding.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shim'u. English can make “hear” sound like sound merely entering the ear, but shema carries the sense of hearing and responding. The sequence, incline, come, hear, shows listening opening into life.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; hear and respond
שְׁמַע
It makes the verse’s hearing active: the voice is received, not merely noticed.
shemu'ah: Report, tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
What is heard can become a message that reaches and shapes the hearer.
נַפְשְׁכֶם
nafsh'khem
GROWS FROM
נפש
The living self: a person in the fullness of their life.
“living soul” in this verse is nafsh'khem. Nefesh names the whole living self, not a detachable inner part. English can divide this word’s range among “soul,” “life,” and “person,” making “your soul shall live” sound narrower than the whole-person life the Hebrew holds together.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, person
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the noun in the verse with “your” attached; the promise concerns you as a whole living person.
nafash: Be refreshed, rest
נָפַשׁ
The same consonants also form a verb for being refreshed, giving the promise of life a restorative dimension.
חַסְדֵּי
chasdei
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful love: durable loyalty expressed in relationship.
“steady faithful loves” in this verse is chasdei. Alongside the mercies carried by the English, chesed reveals faithful love as durable covenant loyalty. A related form describes a faithful person, showing this love as lived and relational.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love
חֶסֶד
This is the enduring love at the heart of the covenant named in the verse.
chasid: A faithful or devoted person
חָסִיד
The related form shows the root’s relational character in a person marked by devotion.
THE PATTERN
When hearing receives and answers God’s voice, life reaches the whole person.
That you may love the LORD your God, and that you may hear and respond to his voice, and that you may cling to him; for he is your life, and the lengthening of your days; that you may settle upon the ground the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.This is my comfort in my bowing low, for your word has brought me to life.Truly, truly, I say to you, The hour is coming, and now it is, when the dead will hear and respond to the voice of the Son of God, and those who respond will live.THE THREAD
And that he raised him up from the dead, no longer about to turn back to decay, he said it in this way, "I will give you the steady faithful loves of David."Acts repeats Isaiah’s phrase “the sure mercies of David” and places it beside life beyond corruption. That connection opens the covenant’s promise of life as something held firm even through death.
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