What Does Psalm 115:6 Mean in the King James?
They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
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 Hebrew echoes the ear in its word for listening: the image has the organ’s shape, but gives no ear.
THE MEANING
This verse places the reader before an image with ears and a nose, yet no capacity to hear or smell. The Hebrew links the ear to the act of listening, so the absence of response is part of the image itself. The form is present; living perception is not.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an image can hear simply because it bears ears: likeness does not create living attention.
THE ROOT
אָזְנַיִם
ʾoznayim
GROWS FROM
א־ז־ן
The ear; to give ear or listen attentively.
“ears / hear” in this verse is ʾoznayim. The verse places אָזְנַיִם (ʾoznayim, ears) beside יַאֲזִינוּ (yaʾazinu, they listen), echoing the same root consonants. The image possesses the organ, yet does not perform its living function.
ALSO GROWS
ʾozen: ear
אֹזֶן
This is the singular form of the organ the images possess.
haʾazin: listen, give ear
הַאֲזִין
The verb reveals the attentive response that the images lack.
אַף
ʾaf
GROWS FROM
א־נ־ף
The related verb means to flare in anger; the noun אַף names the nose or nostril and also carries the sense of anger and heat.
The nose is present as a feature, but it cannot sense. The Hebrew noun אַף also carries the sense of anger, with heat pictured at a flaring nostril; even that bodily association remains only a shape in the image.
ALSO GROWS
ʾaf: nose, nostril; also anger
אַף
The same noun names the organ in this verse and can also name anger.
ʾanaph: be angry, flare in anger
אָנַף
This related verb shows the heat and anger associated with the word for nose.
יְרִיחוּן
yəriḥun
GROWS FROM
ר־י־ח
Scent or odor; to smell or perceive scent.
“smell” in this verse is yəriḥun. The verb for smelling belongs to the same root as the noun for scent: perception and what is perceived share one word family. The images have the feature but no ability to register what is sensed.
ALSO GROWS
rēaḥ: scent, odor
רֵיחַ
This noun names what the verb in the verse fails to perceive.
rēaḥ nîḥōaḥ: pleasing aroma
רֵיחַ נִיחוֹחַ
This familiar phrase uses the same word for scent, bringing the gap between possessing a nose and perceiving an aroma into focus.
THE PATTERN
A crafted image can reproduce the features of living power without possessing perception or life.
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.THE THREAD
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?The word for ear here, אָזֶן (ʾozen), belongs to the same root family as the ears in Psalm 115:6. The contrast sharpens: the one who formed the ear hears, while the made image bears its shape but does not listen.
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