What Does Romans 10:21 Mean?
But to Israel he says, All day long I have spread out my hands to a people who will not yield and who answer back.
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
But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.THE KEY
God’s hands stay open all day toward people who refuse and argue back.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader before a posture that does not withdraw: God’s hands remain stretched out all day toward people who resist persuasion and answer back. The resistance is real, and so is the continued reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that resistance makes a person unreachable: the verse holds outstretched hands toward those who resist and answer back.
THE ROOT
ἐξεπέτασα
exepetasa
GROWS FROM
πετάννυμι
petannymi
to spread or stretch out
The verb pictures hands spread out toward someone, while “all day long” makes the reach sustained. The posture stays open even as the people resist.
ALSO GROWS
petannymi: spread out
πετάννυμι
The base verb gives the gesture its open, extended shape.
ekpetannymi: stretch forth or spread out
ἐκπετάννυμι
This form makes the reaching movement explicit: the hands extend toward the people.
ἀπειθοῦντα
apeithounta
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
to persuade, or to be persuaded and trust
“will not yield” in this verse is apeithounta. The Greek word carries the sense of refusing persuasion as well as disobedience. It frames the response as resistance to trust, not only a failure to follow a command.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: persuade; be persuaded or trust
πείθω
The verse’s refusal is set against the possibility of being persuaded.
pistis: trust, confidence
πίστις
This related word shows the trust that the refusal resists.
ἀντιλέγοντα
antilegonta
GROWS FROM
λέγω
legō
to say or speak
“who answer back” in this verse is antilegonta. “Gainsaying” is counter-speech: the people speak against what is being said. The verse sets that opposition beside hands that remain extended.
ALSO GROWS
legō: say, speak
λέγω
This is the speaking root inside the word.
antilegō: speak against, contradict
ἀντιλέγω
The compound names the people’s answer as speech in opposition.
THE PATTERN
A resisting response does not make the reaching hand withdraw.
I spread my hands all the day to a people that turns its shoulder and walks in a way that is not good, after their own plans.Because I call out and you refuse; I stretch out my hand, and no one bends an ear.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!THE THREAD
I spread my hands all the day to a people that turns its shoulder and walks in a way that is not good, after their own plans.Romans repeats Isaiah’s image with the same Greek words for stretched-out hands, refusal, and speaking against. Isaiah adds that the people follow their own thoughts, while the hands remain spread through the whole day.
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