Deuteronomy 6:4 · Symbol · Obedience
The Words Shama and Hypakoe
The Hebrew shama means to hear and to obey, and the Greek hypakoe is built on the verb to hear.
The first time Genesis uses the verb shama, the man and his wife hear the voice of God and hide.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
- The word
- שָׁמַע (shama), H8085
- First appears
- Genesis 3:8 “Then the man and his wife heard the…”
Summary
The Hebrew verb shama is the Old Testament's common word for hearing, and in many verses it means to listen so as to do what is said. The Aramaic chapters of Daniel use a form of the same verb. In each language the sense of obeying is given by the verse in which the word stands.
- Shama (H8085) is a verb of hearing that stands more often in Jeremiah than in any other book.
- Hypakoe (G5218) is mostly Paul's word, and twice it names Christ's own obedience.
- The opposites are built on hearing too: parakouo is to mishear, and parakoe is disobedience.
- Jesus joins hearing to keeping with a second verb, so hearing alone falls short of obedience.
The First Uses of Shama
In Genesis the verb first names a hearing that leads to hiding, and in 1 Samuel a boy's readiness to listen.
This study follows the Old Testament's verb shama and the New Testament's noun hypakoe through the verses that set their sense. Obedience is one of the values Scripture asks of every believer, and these words show how closely Scripture ties obeying God to hearing Him.
The question this study answers is what the two words meant to the writers who used them, and whether they always mean to obey. It gives their counts, the words built beside them in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and the verses that set the sense.
Then the man and his wife heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the breeze of the day, and they hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.This is the first use of shama in the order of the canon, and here it means only to hear.
Then the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.”The boy's answer uses the participle of shama, a servant ready to hear and to act.
Where the Words Stand
The Hebrew verb leads the count, and the Greek words for obedience are far rarer than the verb to hear.
Shama and akouo carry hundreds of uses, and the Greek words for obeying and disobeying stand only a few times each.
| Word | Sense (Tyndale House lexicon) | Rows | Verses | Books with the most rows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew and Aramaic | ||||
| shama, שָׁמַע, H8085, verb | to hear intelligently, often with implication of attention, obedience | 1159 | 1072 | Jeremiah 184, Isaiah 106, Deuteronomy 91; 39 books in all |
| shema, שְׁמַע, H8086, Aramaic verb | to hear | 9 | 9 | Daniel alone |
| Greek | ||||
| akouo, ἀκούω, G191, verb | to hear (in various senses) | 425 | 395 | Acts 89, Luke 64, Matthew 63; 23 books in all |
| hypakouo, ὑπακούω, G5219, verb | to hear under (as a subordinate), i.e. to listen attentively | 21 | 21 | Romans 4; 11 books in all |
| hypakoe, ὑπακοή, G5218, noun | attentive hearkening, i.e. (by implication) compliance or submission | 14 | 13 | Romans 6, 2 Corinthians 3, 1 Peter 3; 5 books in all |
| hypekoos, ὑπήκοος, G5255, adjective | attentively listening, i.e. (by implication) submissive | 3 | 3 | Acts, 2 Corinthians and Philippians, one each |
| parakouo, παρακούω, G3878, verb | to mishear, i.e. (by implication) to disobey | 3 | 2 | Matthew 2, Mark 1 |
| parakoe, παρακοή, G3876, noun | inattention, i.e. (by implication) disobedience | 3 | 3 | Romans, 2 Corinthians and Hebrews, one each |
hypakoe, ὑπακοή, G5218, noun, hypekoos, ὑπήκοος, G5255, adjective, parakouo, παρακούω, G3878, verb, parakoe, παρακοή, G3876, noun
The counts are those of the STEP Bible tagging, where a verse that uses a word twice holds two rows, and a printed concordance may differ by one or two.
Shama in the Law and the Prophets
Deuteronomy calls Israel to hear, the covenant doubled the verb, Samuel used it twice in one answer, and the prophets charged Israel with refusing it.
The tagged Hebrew of Deuteronomy 6:4 opens with the verb itself, shema, glossed hear. The verse before it uses the same verb with a second one: “Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them” (Deuteronomy 6:3).
Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine.The Hebrew doubles the verb here, shamoa tishmeu, and the Berean text renders the pair indeed obey.
But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams.The tagged Hebrew uses shama twice in Samuel's answer and glosses the two uses like listening and to obey.
Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.Jeremiah, the book with the most rows of shama, charges Israel with a refusal to listen.
Does Hearing Mean Obeying?
Genesis, 1 Samuel and Luke show where the verb means only hearing and where obeying needs a second word.
The lexicon writes “often with implication of attention, obedience”, which names a frequent sense and leaves the other uses standing. In 1 Samuel 15:14 Samuel uses the verb of the bleating of sheep that he could hear.
A word's meaning is set by its use in a verse, and the sense of its root or its parts cannot be read into every use. The Greek parakouo shows the same care, glossed “to mishear, i.e. (by implication) to disobey”, and rendered refuses to listen in Matthew 18:17.
But He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”Jesus uses akouo for hearing and a second verb, phylasso, for keeping, so the blessing rests on both.
Hypakoe and the Words Built on Akouo
Greek forms its words for obeying by adding a prefix to the verb to hear.
The Tyndale House brief lexicon defines hypakouo, by implication, as “to heed or conform to a command or authority”.
Abbott-Smith's lexicon gives hypakoe three senses: obedience in general, obedience to God's commands, and Christ's own obedience.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered.Hebrews uses hypakoe of Christ, the third of Abbott-Smith's senses.
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.Paul sets parakoe, disobedience, against hypakoe, obedience, a hearing amiss against an attentive hearing.
The verb hypakouo first stands in Matthew 8:27, where the disciples ask, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!” Mark 1:27 uses it of the unclean spirits: “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him!”
Voices on the Words
Two voices read the first word of the Shema and Jesus' answer to a woman in the crowd.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
Ambrose stands here for the order of hearing and speaking.
Read the page on Ambrose of Milan
“The law says, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God.’ It did not say ‘speak’ but ‘hear.’ Eve fell because she said to the man what she had not heard from the Lord her God. The first word from God says to you, ‘hear.’”
Ambrose of Milan · On the Duties of the Clergy 1.2.7 · on Deuteronomy 6:4Patristic
died 430 · Augustine of Hippo
Augustine stands here for the blessing of those who hear and keep the word.
Read the page on Augustine of Hippo
“Mary was more blessed in accepting the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ. To someone who said, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you,’ he replied, ‘Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.’Finally, for his brothers, his relatives according to the flesh who did not believe in him, of what advantage was that relationship? Even her maternal relationship would have done Mary no good unless she had borne Christ more happily in her heart than in her flesh.”
Augustine of Hippo · On Holy Virginity 3 · on Luke 11:27 to 28Patristic
An Obedience Others Heard Of
Romans speaks of the obedience of the nations in its first chapter and its last.
In both Testaments the words for obedience grow out of the words for hearing, and the verses show that the hearing God asks for ends in doing what He says.
Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.It closes the study because here hypakoe names a church's known way of life, the obedience the letter set out to win among the nations.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESH and TBESG glosses (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), the Greek senses based on Abbott-Smith (1922), with the Strong's definitions (1890) the rows carry.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament, the tagged texts (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), the entry for hypakoe.
- Ambrose of Milan, On the Duties of the Clergy 1.2.7, on Deuteronomy 6:4.
- Augustine of Hippo, On Holy Virginity, section 3, on Luke 11:28.
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