What Does Jeremiah 42:13 Mean?
But if you say, We will not settle in this land, nor hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your 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
But if ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the LORD your God,THE KEY
Here, refusing to dwell in the land and refusing to hear the LORD’s voice are joined as one choice.
THE MEANING
The sentence exposes a refusal with two faces: leaving the land and refusing the LORD’s voice. The reader meets it wherever the desire to move away and the refusal to hear direction arise together; “hear” carries response, not sound alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that where you choose to dwell and which voice you heed are separate matters.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁמַע
nishmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
Hear, listen, heed, respond.
“nor hear and respond to” in this verse is nishmaʿ. Here, “obey” is literally hearing: the refusal is not a failure to catch sound but a refusal to receive the voice as direction. The same root opens the Shema, where hearing is bound to response, a connection easy to miss in English.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The same root begins Deuteronomy’s call to hear, showing that hearing can include a response to what is heard.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what arrives through hearing, linking the voice received with what is carried forward.
THE PATTERN
The choice of where to dwell and which voice to heed are bound together.
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.But this word I commanded them, saying, Hear and respond to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in every way that I have commanded you, so that it may be good for you.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.“Hear” here is שְׁמַע (shemaʿ), from the same root שׁמע as “obey” in Jeremiah. The refusal to hear names the opposite of this call: hearing that receives and responds.
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