What Does Isaiah 50:5 Mean in the King James?
The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The opened ear is answered by a life that does not resist or retreat.
THE MEANING
The Lord GOD opens your ear now, making hearing an access received rather than a capacity you manufacture. The open ear appears in a life that does not resist or draw back from what it hears.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing is passive and consequence-free: the opened ear is visible in the refusal to resist or retreat.
THE ROOT
פָּתַח
pāṯaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
To open or loosen; to make an opening.
The verse makes listening an opening: the ear is not simply told to work; what was closed is opened. The same root names a doorway, showing hearing as access made available.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: Doorway, entrance, opening.
פֶּתַח
The doorway shares the root of the opened ear: both make a passage where there was closure.
pātûaḥ: Open, opened.
פָּתוּחַ
This form carries the same state of openness into the verse’s image of hearing.
מָרִיתִי
mārîtî
GROWS FROM
מרה
m-r-h
To rebel, resist, or contend against.
“rebellious” in this verse is mārîtî. This root carries active resistance, not merely a failure to hear an instruction. The verse links the opened ear with a response that does not push back against what it receives.
ALSO GROWS
merî: Rebellion, resistance.
מְרִי
The noun names the resisting stance the speaker says is absent.
mamrîm: Rebellious, resisting.
מַמְרִים
This form describes active resistance, sharpening the contrast with the open ear.
THE PATTERN
An opened ear is fulfilled in a life that receives the voice without resisting or retreating.
Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.Both verses use the same Hebrew word for ear, placing hearing at the center of response. Psalm 40:6 pictures ears God has dug open, while Isaiah says the ear is opened: in both, hearing is access God clears before the speaker answers.
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