What Does Zechariah 7:7 Mean in the King James?
Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?
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 prophetic words are not archived as history: the call that sounded through them still summons the reader inside a life that feels settled.
THE MEANING
Your settled life does not place the LORD’s words behind you; the prophetic call addresses you now, within places where life functions and feels secure. The question asks whether those words reach your hearing in precisely that condition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a settled and prosperous life means you no longer need to reckon with the LORD’s earlier words.
THE ROOT
קָרָא
qārāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call, summon, or proclaim; also to read aloud.
“cried” in this verse is qārāʾ. קרא makes the LORD’s speech a call that summons a hearer, not merely a message stored in the past. Its family names both public reading and a gathering called together, so the prophetic word carries the force of an utterance meant to be heard in common.
ALSO GROWS
qeriʾah: Calling, recitation, or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It shows the spoken call as an act of voicing words for a hearer.
miqraʾ: Reading or recitation; a convocation or assembly.
מִקְרָא
The same root can name a gathering summoned to hear, giving the prophetic call a communal reach.
qoreʾ: One who calls or reads aloud.
קֹרֵא
It names the voice that carries the words toward those who must hear.
הַדְּבָרִים
had-devarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or utter; the word family also names a matter or thing.
דָּבָר can mean a word, a matter, or a thing, keeping speech joined to the conditions it addresses. Here, the prophetic words concern a real, inhabited, prosperous life, not an abstraction detached from it.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
It holds spoken words and the matters they address within one Hebrew word-family.
dibber: Spoke, declared, or addressed.
דִּבֶּר
It shows the same consonants active as speech, the act by which the LORD’s words reach the hearer.
יֹשֶׁבֶת
yoshevet
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, dwell, remain, or be settled.
English ‘inhabited’ gives the result, while ישב retains the image of sitting down and dwelling in a place. The verse repeats this root for Jerusalem and the surrounding regions, making settled life the very setting in which the call still demands hearing.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, or remain.
יָשַׁב
This is the root verb beneath ‘inhabited,’ with the image of staying in a place.
yoshev: One dwelling or sitting; an inhabitant.
יֹשֵׁב
It names a person as settled in the place the verse describes.
yeshivah: A sitting, session, or assembly.
יְשִׁיבָה
It preserves the root’s image of people gathered and settled together.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word is heard when its claim reaches the life it addresses.
I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice.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
Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD.The word translated ‘cried’ is again קָרָא (qārāʾ), the root of calling and proclaiming. This earlier verse names the call and the refusal to hear, opening Zechariah 7:7’s question as a summons whose response remains present.
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