What Does Judges 2:17 Mean in the King James?
And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not so.
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 means response: when the word no longer reaches your actions, another allegiance can take the path.
THE MEANING
A guide’s voice can be present without being received as a response. When you refuse that hearing, desire attaches elsewhere, your body bows to the new allegiance, and your feet leave a path already walked. The verse reveals these as one movement, not unrelated choices.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that guidance being present means it has been received and followed. A voice can stand before you while your allegiance and path move elsewhere.
THE ROOT
שָׁמֵעוּ
shāmeʿū
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, and respond.
The verse’s “hearken” comes from שמע, the same root that carries hearing and response. The rupture is not merely in what reaches the ear: the word no longer reaches action, and allegiance shifts.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The same root opens Deuteronomy 6:4, where hearing is a call to responsive attention.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch keeps the heard message in view: the question is whether what is heard reaches the hearer.
זָנוּ
zānû
GROWS FROM
זנה
z-n-h
Commit sexual infidelity; whore.
“went a whoring” in this verse is zānû. The verse uses the language of sexual betrayal for pursuing other gods. The image holds the force of the transfer as intimate disloyalty, followed at once by bodily bowing.
ALSO GROWS
zonah: Prostitute; sexually unfaithful woman.
זֹנָה
This noun keeps the verse’s language concrete: the pursuit is described as infidelity.
zenunim: Whoredoms; acts of sexual infidelity.
זְנוּנִים
The related plural form shows the same root naming repeated acts of betrayal, fitting the verse’s turn toward other gods.
הַדֶּרֶךְ
haderekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
Tread, step, or travel along.
The word for “way” is tied to treading or stepping. Beside the phrase about the fathers who walked in it, the verse presents a received path as a route made real by repeated steps, and departure as turning from that track.
ALSO GROWS
derek: Way, road, path.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the word in the verse: the fathers’ way is a traveled route, not an abstract idea.
darak: Tread, step, march.
דָּרַךְ
The related verb reveals the movement inside the noun: a way is something traced by steps.
THE PATTERN
When hearing is severed from response, desire transfers allegiance and the shared path is abandoned.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve 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.But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:Judges 2:17 says they did not hearken, from שמע (shamaʿ, hear and respond); Deuteronomy 6:4 opens with the imperative שְׁמַע (shemaʿ, hear and respond). The shared root makes the contrast sharp: the call to responsive hearing is also the word that describes the breach when hearing is refused.
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