What Does Leviticus 26:27 Mean?
And if you will not, for all this, hear and respond to me, but walk against me;
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;THE KEY
The verse names opposition as a direction: refusing to hear is already walking against the one speaking.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where the warnings already given have not changed your response: you refuse to hear and respond to God, and keep walking in opposition. It joins hearing and conduct in one relationship, so refusal becomes a path. Its conditional warning carries into the next verse with further severity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing God is merely taking in words while your course can remain opposed; the verse binds hearing to the way you walk.
THE ROOT
קְרִי
qerî
GROWS FROM
קרה
meet, encounter, befall; this is a commonly proposed link for the rare word qerî, meaning opposition or hostility
“walk against” in this verse is qerî. The rare קְרִי (qerî) is commonly linked to קָרָה (qarah), “meet” or “befall,” though the derivation is not certain. The verse’s contrast is clear: refusing to hear and respond is joined to walking in opposition, so the rupture shows itself in a lived direction.
ALSO GROWS
qārâ: to meet, encounter, or befall
קָרָה
This proposed root centers on what meets or comes upon someone, adding the shade of encounter to the rare word qerî.
miqreh: an event, occurrence, or what happens
מִקְרֶה
This related noun shows the root’s association with what happens or befalls, though it does not by itself settle the force of qerî here.
תִּשְׁמְעוּ
tishmeʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, heed, respond
“hear and respond to me” in this verse is tishmeʿu. שָׁמַע (shamaʿ) holds hearing and response together. Set beside the following walk, refusal is not merely a failure to receive sound; it is a chosen direction in relation to the voice.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: hear and respond; heed
שְׁמַע
This familiar form shows that the verse’s “hearken” carries the sense of answering what is heard.
shemuʿah: a report, news, or something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This related noun shows the root’s range around hearing, while the verse focuses on whether hearing becomes a response.
THE PATTERN
When hearing does not become response, the path that follows exposes whether it moves with the voice or against it.
But it shall be, if you do not hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, to guard and to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The same root שׁמע (sh-m-ʿ, shamaʿ), “hear and respond,” opens this confession. Leviticus shows the fracture that follows when that hearing is refused: the path turns contrary.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us