What Does Zechariah 7:11 Mean in the King James?
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
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 refusal is already written into the body: a turned shoulder and weighted ears prevent hearing from becoming response.
THE MEANING
This verse names a refusal that moves through the whole body: attention is withheld, the shoulder becomes a sign of defiance, and the ears are made heavy. The word for “hear” carries the sense of receiving with response, so what is blocked is more than sound; it is the willingness to answer what reaches the ear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that failing to hear is always passive: this verse describes refusal as a practiced bodily posture.
THE ROOT
הִכְבִּידוּ
hikbidu
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
Be heavy; make weighty.
“stopped” in this verse is hikbidu. The verb says they make their ears heavy. Hearing is pictured as something they burden against receiving, so the blockage is an act of resistance rather than an absence of sound.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
The adjective gives the physical image behind the verse: their ears become heavy, as if weighed down against what they might hear.
kavod: Weight; weightiness.
כָּבוֹד
The same root carries the language of weight. Here, that weight settles on the ears and keeps hearing from opening into response.
מִשְּׁמֹעַ
mishmoa
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, heed, respond.
“hear” in this verse is mishmoa. The root שׁמע (shama) can hold hearing and heeding together. Their ears are closed to the kind of hearing that receives a message and answers it.
ALSO GROWS
shama: Hear; heed; respond.
שָׁמַע
This verb holds reception and response together, revealing what their refusal is meant to prevent.
shemuah: Report; tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
A message becomes a shemuah when it is heard and received; the verse describes ears deliberately blocked to that reception.
THE PATTERN
Refusal to hear appears as whole-person closure: the body, ears, and heart stop receiving what reaches them.
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.THE THREAD
Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.Verse 12 repeats the שׁמע (shama, hear and respond) root, then moves the refusal inward: the heart becomes stone so it cannot hear. The heavy ears of verse 11 open into a whole inner life made resistant to response.
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