What Does Psalm 115:6 Mean?
They have ears, but they do not hear; they have nostrils, but they do not smell.
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
They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: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.
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.
“nostrils” in this verse is ʾaf. 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 perceived nor discerned, for he has plastered over their eyes from seeing, and their heart from understanding.Woe to the one who says to wood, Awake, and to the silent stone, Stir yourself, it will instruct! Behold, it is plated with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in its inward parts.Since then we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, carved by craft and by human imagining.THE THREAD
Does the one who plants the ear not hear? Does the one who shapes the eye 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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