What Does Judges 6:10 Mean?
And I said to you, I am the LORD your God. Do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you settle, yet you have not heard and responded to my voice.
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 I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.THE KEY
The deeper failure is not fearing the wrong power; it is hearing the right voice without responding.
THE MEANING
You can stop fearing the powers around you and still remain unresponsive to the voice addressing you now. This verse locates the deeper rupture in hearing that never becomes response; freedom from one allegiance does not by itself mean you are listening.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that rejecting the surrounding powers is enough to mean you are aligned with God. You can refuse their claim and still fail to respond to God’s voice.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַעְתֶּם
shemaʿtem
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
To hear, listen, heed, and respond.
“heard and responded to” in this verse is shemaʿtem. The Hebrew behind “obeyed” comes from שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear and respond), the same root in the call “Hear, O Israel.” The verse locates the failure in hearing itself: a voice is not fully received while its call goes unanswered.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: To hear or listen, with the sense of heeding what is heard.
שָׁמַע
The verse renders this hearing as “obeyed,” showing that its meaning reaches beyond sound entering the ear.
shemuʿah: A report or message that has been heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes hearing a received message; the verse’s concern is whether the LORD’s voice is received responsively.
THE PATTERN
Hearing becomes real when the received word shapes a response.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.If you are willing and hear and respond, you shall eat the good of the land.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.Both passages use שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear and respond) for “obey.” Samuel makes the link explicit by placing responsive hearing above sacrifice, sharpening why Judges names the failure as not hearing the LORD’s voice.
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