What Does Joshua 24:24 Mean in the King James?
And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.
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
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.
“obey” 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 thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:THE THREAD
Hear, 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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