What Does Judges 9:7 Mean?
And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the head of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and called out, and said to them, Hear and respond to me, men of Shechem, so that God may hear and respond to you.
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 when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root links the people’s hearing of Jotham with God’s hearing of them, turning a call to listen into a question of reciprocity.
THE MEANING
Jotham sets two acts of hearing beside each other: the people hear him, and God may hear them. For the reader now, listening becomes part of the relationship this appeal names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the idea that divine hearing can be invoked while the voice calling for attention is ignored; Jotham places the two acts side by side.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
sh-m-ʿ
hear, listen, heed
“hear and respond” in this verse is shimʿu. The Hebrew repeats the root שׁמע (sh-m-ʿ, “hear”) in Jotham’s command to the people and in his appeal that God hear them. English preserves the repetition as “hearken,” but the shared root makes the two acts part of one exchange: a voice calls to be heard, and another hearing is sought in return.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: The imperative “hear” or “listen.”
שְׁמַע
It echoes Jotham’s direct call to the people: attention is the first movement in the exchange.
shomeaʿ: A person who hears or listens.
שֹׁמֵעַ
This form makes the listener visible in the root itself, bringing the people who hear Jotham into focus.
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, hearing carries a response: what is heard shapes what follows.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.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 God heard and responded to their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.The Hebrew word translated “heard” comes from the same root שׁמע (sh-m-ʿ, “hear”) that Jotham repeats. Here, God’s hearing of a cry is joined to remembering the covenant, opening Jotham’s appeal as an exchange in which hearing matters.
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