What Does Job 13:17 Mean?
Hear and respond, hear my speech, and my declaration with your ears.
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 diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.THE KEY
The doubled word for hearing makes the request more than noticing sound: the speaker asks to be listened to with care.
THE MEANING
The speaker’s words stand before you asking to be heard whole, with the force of the repeated command still present. Hearing reaches beyond sound here: the claim receives attention before it is answered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A person can be dismissed even after their words have technically been heard.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ שָׁמוֹעַ
shimʿu shāmōaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed, or respond.
“Hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿu shāmōaʿ. The Hebrew repeats the root in an imperative and an infinitive absolute, literally, “hear, hearing”, to intensify the request. The root can carry hearing into heeding, so the speaker asks for more than sound reaching the ears: the words are to be taken in.
ALSO GROWS
shama: To hear, listen, or heed.
שָׁמַע
This is the root verb repeated in the verse, joining hearing with the attention the speaker seeks.
shemuʿah: Something heard; a report or message.
שְׁמוּעָה
A report is carried by hearing, showing how this root links listening with receiving a message.
shomēaʿ: A hearer or listener.
שֹׁמֵעַ
The word names the person on the receiving side of the speaker’s plea: someone who gives the words attention.
THE PATTERN
A claim is received fully when hearing gives it attention before response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Both verses turn on שָׁמַע (shama, hear and respond): Job’s speaker asks for his words to be heard with care, while Deuteronomy begins with the same call to hear. The shared root makes listening the threshold through which a message is received.
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