What Does Joshua 24:24 Mean?
And the people said to Joshua, The LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will hear and respond to.
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 the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.THE KEY
Here, hearing God’s voice already carries the shape of a response: service grows from listening.
THE MEANING
The verse holds service and responsive hearing together: you serve the LORD your God and attend to his voice. Hearing is more than receiving sound here; it is listening that answers, so allegiance has both a direction and a voice it follows.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that service can be separated from listening: the pledge joins serving the LORD to hearing his voice.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁמָע
nishma
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
Hear, listen; in this verse, hear in a way that responds.
“hear and respond to” in this verse is nishma. The Hebrew verb is built from shama, the root behind “hear.” The verse’s wording holds listening and response together: God’s voice is heard as something that calls for an answer.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; listen.
שְׁמַע
This is the same root in the opening word of Deuteronomy 6:4, linking Joshua’s pledge to Israel’s call to hear.
shemuah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names what is received by hearing, bringing the voice in Joshua’s pledge into view as a message that reaches the listener.
נַעֲבֹד
na'avod
GROWS FROM
עבד
Work, serve; labor in service.
“serve” in this verse is na'avod. The root עבד can describe both serving and the work through which service is carried out. Its branches show that this pledge is expressed as lived service, joined in the verse to hearing God’s voice.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant; bondservant.
עֶבֶד
This noun names the person in service, showing the relational identity carried by the verb “serve.”
avodah: Work, labor, service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch makes service concrete as enacted work, rather than a pledge that remains only words.
THE PATTERN
Allegiance takes shape when service is joined to attentive response to God’s voice.
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.And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.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.Joshua’s “we will obey” uses nishma, from the same root, שמע (shama), as the opening word “Hear” in this verse. The shared root connects Israel’s call to hear with the people’s first-person pledge to respond to God’s voice.
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