What Does Judges 2:2 Mean?
And you shall not cut a covenant with those who settle this land. You shall tear down their altars. But you have not heard and responded to my voice. Why have you done this?
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 ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?THE KEY
The Hebrew says not merely “make no league” but “cut no covenant”, and names obedience as hearing that becomes action.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a concrete and severe demand: make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and tear down their altars. It names the failure as not hearing the voice, then asks why the command remains unmet. The gap between the spoken demand and the response stands open in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing the voice counts as faithfulness even when the response it names is withheld.
THE ROOT
תִכְרְתוּ
tikretu
GROWS FROM
כרת
Cut, cut off, sever.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “cut a covenant,” where the KJV says “make a league.” The verse describes allegiance as a concrete act of binding, and forbids that bond while commanding the altars to be torn down.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This is the phrase behind “make no league”; the agreement is named with the action of cutting.
nikhrat: Be cut off, severed.
נִכְרַת
The same root can name severance, bringing the verse’s forbidden bond into sharper relief.
שְׁמַעְתֶּם
shemaʿtem
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“not heard and responded to my voice” in this verse is shemaʿtem. The Hebrew says “you have not heard my voice,” using the root translated here as “obeyed.” Hearing in this word reaches beyond receiving sound: the voice is heeded through the response that follows.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The familiar call “Hear, O Israel” uses this root, showing that hearing can name a whole response, not just a sound reaching the ear.
shemuʿah: A report, news, or thing heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This related word names what is received by hearing; Judges makes the failure a failure to heed the voice.
THE PATTERN
A command is heard in the response it names.
But thus shall you do to them. You shall tear down their altars, shatter their standing stones, cut down their upright poles, and burn their hewn images in the fire.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.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
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.Judges says “you have not heard” using שמע (shamaʿ), the same root behind Samuel’s “obeying” and “hearken.” The shared root makes the connection concrete: offerings cannot stand in for a response to the voice.
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