What Does Jeremiah 7:13 Mean?
And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, but you did not hear and respond; and I called you, but you did not answer.
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
And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;THE KEY
The call keeps arriving, but it never becomes hearing or answer.
THE MEANING
You are addressed repeatedly, and the verse names your nonresponse plainly: you do not hear, and you do not answer. Your actions and your silence stand together; the words reach you, but are not received as a summons that draws forth a reply.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing words is the same as receiving them: speech can reach you without becoming heed or response.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַעְתֶּם
shemaʿtem
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, or heed.
“did not hear and respond” in this verse is shemaʿtem. The verb translated “heard” carries a range from hearing to heeding, so the failure here is not a lack of sound but a failure of reception. The separate “answered not” makes visible how that missing reception reaches into response.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed.
שָׁמַע
The verse’s failure to hear is a failure to receive the address as something that calls for a response.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings; what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
A message can arrive as something heard, while this verse names the deeper absence: it is not received.
shomeaʿ: One who hears or listens.
שֹׁמֵעַ
The word for a hearer points to a posture of listening that the verse says is absent.
עֲנִיתֶם
ʿanitem
GROWS FROM
ענה
To answer or respond.
“answered not” in this verse is ʿanitem. The verse gives the silence its own verb: the call is made, but no reply follows. Beside the failed hearing, this shows the address breaking down at both reception and response.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaneh: An answer or reply.
מַעֲנֶה
The noun names the response absent from the verse’s unanswered call.
ʿoneh: One who answers; answering.
עֹנֶה
The participle names the responding person, while the verse describes no one taking that place.
THE PATTERN
An address becomes heard in the full sense when it is received and answered.
And I will count you to the sword, and all of you will kneel to the slaughter, for I called, and you did not answer; I spoke, and you did not hear and respond; you did evil in my eyes, and you chose what I did not delight in.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The opening verb, שְׁמַע (shemaʿ, hear and respond), shares the root שמע with Jeremiah’s “heard not.” Deuteronomy opens with this call to hear; Jeremiah exposes the break where the address reaches the person but no response follows.
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