What Does Nehemiah 13:27 Mean?
Shall we then hear and respond to you, doing all this great evil, trespassing against our God in bringing home foreign wives?
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
Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?THE KEY
Here, hearkening becomes an act of consent, and the act is named betrayal.
THE MEANING
A human appeal stands against what is named loyalty to God, and hearkening becomes consent that takes form in action. The marriages are called “great evil,” while the wives are marked as foreign; the verse exposes the severe moral force carried by that boundary of belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Hearing is not morally neutral here: the verse treats hearkening as consent that leads into action.
THE ROOT
נָכְרִיּוֹת
nokhriyyot
GROWS FROM
נכר
Foreign or alien; in a related verb form, recognize or identify as distinct.
English “strange” can suggest merely unfamiliar, but נָכְרִיּוֹת means foreign women. The root family also carries the sense of recognizing or identifying, bringing the boundary of who is marked as other into view; the verse’s severe judgment falls on these marriages.
ALSO GROWS
nokhri: A foreigner or alien.
נָכְרִי
This is the singular form of the word used for the wives, making the boundary explicit.
hikkir: Recognize or identify.
הִכִּיר
This related form shows the root’s connection to distinguishing someone as known or as other.
לִמְעֹל
limʿol
GROWS FROM
מעל
Act treacherously; breach trust or act unfaithfully.
“trespassing” in this verse is limʿol. English “transgress” can sound like crossing a rule; מָעַל often carries the sharper sense of betrayal or breached trust. The verse frames the marriages as a breach of loyalty to God, giving the accusation its full force while retaining the boundary it draws around foreign women.
ALSO GROWS
maʿal: To act treacherously or unfaithfully.
מָעַל
This verb names the breach the verse says the marriages enact.
maʿal: Treachery or a breach of trust.
מַעַל
The noun form makes the same root’s betrayal sense visible as an act or offense.
שָׁמַע
shamaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, heed, respond to what is heard.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shamaʿ. The root carries hearing toward response, and the verse makes that movement explicit: “hearken unto you to do.” Hearing here is not only sound received; it is consent moving into conduct.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, heed, or respond.
שָׁמַע
This root meaning links listening directly to the action that follows in the verse.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows the same root at the point of receiving a message, before the response it may call forth.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, hearing becomes a form of allegiance when it takes shape in action.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.But he said, Rather, flourishing are those who hear and respond to the word of God and guard it.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
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.The Hebrew root שמע appears in both verses: Nehemiah asks whether the people will hearken to a human appeal, while Samuel speaks of hearkening to the LORD’s voice. Together they sharpen the question of whose voice is heard and what action follows.
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