Lexicon

H8085 - shama

Strong's: H8085 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: shaw-mah' Part of speech: verb (Qal, Niphal, Piel, Hiphil) OT occurrences: ~1,159 (one of the most frequent verbs in the Hebrew Bible) Greek equivalent (LXX): akouō (G0191), with cognate hupakouō (G5219, "to obey") where the obedience-sense is foregrounded

Semantic range

The Hebrew shama spans an integrated three-sense field that English splits across separate verbs:

To hear, sensory perception. The auditory uptake of a sound. "Adam heard the voice of YHWH walking in the garden" (Gen 3:8).
To listen, to give ear, to attend, focused auditory uptake, often paired with qashab (H7181, "give attention") or with aznayim ("ears"). The active receptive stance.
To heed, to obey, to comply, the hearing-with-response sense, in which hearing terminates in doing. "All that YHWH has spoken we will do, and we will hear" (Ex 24:7), the Hebrew construction na'aseh ve-nishma ("we will do and we will hear") makes the doing and the hearing a single covenant-response.

The three senses are not separable Hebrew sub-verbs but a unified semantic field. Shama in the imperative ("Hear!") simultaneously commands attention and compliance; in Hebrew anthropology, real hearing terminates in action, and not-doing is treated as not-having-heard.

The Hiphil ("cause to hear" / "proclaim") and Niphal ("be heard" / "be reported") extend the field to making-known and being-made-known.

Theological force

Hearing-is-obeying: the Hebrew anthropology

Hebrew anthropology does not split hearing and obeying the way modern Western anthropology splits information uptake from behavioral response. The same verb covers both. To genuinely hear the word of YHWH is, by definition, to act on it. Disobedience is described in Hebrew as not hearing, not as hearing-and-then-refusing.

This shows up structurally in Israel's covenant theology:

Disobedience = not hearing. "They did not hearken" (Jer 7:24-26; 11:8; 25:3-4) is the prophetic indictment-formula; it does not name a separate moral failure (refusal-after-comprehension) but treats failure-to-comply as failure-to-hear in the strong sense.
Obedience = hearing. "If you will diligently hearken" (shamoa tishma, infinitive-absolute construction, Ex 15:26; Deut 11:13; 28:1) names the whole covenant-response as a hearing-event.
Curse = closed ear. Isa 6:9-10's "keep on hearing but do not understand" (shimu shamoa) is the judicial-hardening that severs the hearing-action link from the inside.

The NT preserves this anthropology. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mt 11:15; 13:9; Mk 4:9; etc.) does not invite passive auditory uptake; it summons the hearing-that-acts. James 1:22, "prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers", works against a Hellenistic split that the Hebrew shama tradition did not natively allow.

The Shema

The single most consequential occurrence of shama is the imperative that opens Deut 6:4:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד Shema Yisrael, YHWH eloheinu, YHWH echad "Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one."

The confession is named for this verb. Shema (Qal imperative 2ms) opens the verse and becomes the title of the prayer; the prayer's name is the imperative Hear! Israel's identity-confession is structured not as a proposition-to-be-affirmed but as a summons-to-hear that, in Hebrew anthropology, is a summons-to-do.

The structure binds three things together in a single hearing-event: (1) the confession of YHWH's oneness ([[H0259 - echad|echad]]); (2) the love-command of Deut 6:5 ("you shall love YHWH your God with all your heart"); (3) the teach-them-to-your-children command of Deut 6:6-9. The hearing that does not produce love and transmission has not, on Hebrew grammar, hearkened.

See Deuteronomy 6.4 for the full Shema treatment.

"To obey is better than sacrifice"

The strongest single-verse statement of the hearing-is-obeying anthropology is Samuel's word to Saul at 1 Samuel 15.22:

"Hath Jehovah as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Sam 15:22, ASV)

The Hebrew uses shama twice: bishmoa be-qol YHWH ("in hearing the voice of YHWH") and u-le-haqshib (from [[H7181 - qashab|qashab]]), Samuel pairs the two attention-verbs to indict Saul. Saul did the sacrifice; he did not hear. The verse names the ritual-without-obedience pattern as the diagnostic of false religion across the prophets (Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8; Isa 1:11-17; Jer 7:21-24; Amos 5:21-24).

The Servant's listening ear (Isa 50:4)

Isa 50:4 (the third Servant Song):

"He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught." (Isa 50:4b, ASV)

The Servant of YHWH is presented as the perfectly hearing one, the one whose ear YHWH opens each morning to receive the day's word. The Christian-canonical reading hears this fulfilled in Christ's prayed-down dependence on the Father (Jn 5:19, 30; 8:28; 12:49). The Servant's perfect shama is the new-Adam reversal of Eden's failure-to-hear.

The hardening commission (Isa 6:9-10)

Isa 6:9-10 deploys shama in a paradoxical judicial-hardening pronouncement:

"Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." (Isa 6:9, ASV)

The construction shimu shamoa (infinitive-absolute + imperative) intensifies the verb: hear-and-keep-hearing, but the hearing-action terminus is severed by judicial sentence. The verse is the OT root of NT statements about hardening (Mt 13:14-15; Mk 4:12; Lk 8:10; Jn 12:40; Acts 28:26-27; Rom 11:8). The lexical pivot is shama itself: judicial hardening is described as hearing-that-does-not-terminate-in-doing, the inversion of the Hebrew norm.

Shama vs. qashab (H7181)

Where shama is the broad hearing-verb covering perception → attention → compliance, [[H7181 - qashab|qashab]] foregrounds the attentiveness sense (give ear, incline, attend). The two often pair in poetic parallelism, Isa 1:2 (shimu... ha'azini), Isa 28:23 (ha'azinu... shimu... haqshivu), where qashab names the posture and shama names the event. 1 Sam 15:22 deploys both verbs side by side: the indictment of Saul names a failure both in posture (qashab) and in event (shama).

Apologetic / epistemological significance

Shama anchors:

The Shema as Israel's foundational confession and Christ's affirmed "first commandment" (Mk 12:29).
Christian anthropology of the will, hearing-and-doing as a single response, against an information-vs-action split that the OT lexicon does not natively support.
Covenant theology, the formula "if you will diligently hearken" structures the blessing-and-curse pattern of Deut 28; Lev 26; the covenant is a hearing-relationship.
The doctrine of judicial hardening, Isa 6:9-10, root of Romans 9-11, John 12, Acts 28; God's hardening is the severance of the hearing-action terminus.
The pastoral diagnostic, what we do reveals what we have heard; ritual-without-obedience is the prophetic diagnostic of false religion.
Christology, the Servant's perfect hearing (Isa 50:4); Christ as the listening Son (Jn 5:19, 30); the new-Adam reversal of Eden's failure to hear.

Notable verses

The Shema and covenant-hearing

Deuteronomy 6.4, Shema Yisrael, Israel's foundational confession
Deut 5:1, "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances", opens the Decalogue rehearsal
Deut 11:13; 28:1, shamoa tishma, the if-you-diligently-hearken covenant-formula
Mk 12:29, Jesus quoting "Hear, O Israel"

Hearing as covenant-response

Ex 24:7, na'aseh ve-nishma, "all that YHWH has spoken we will do, and we will hear"
Deut 5:27, "speak unto us all that Jehovah our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it"
1 Sam 3:9-10, "speak, Jehovah; for thy servant heareth", Samuel's call

Obedience-as-hearing prophetic indictment

1 Samuel 15.22, "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams"
Jer 7:23, "Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God"
Jer 11:4, the covenant-renewal formula
Hos 6:6; Amos 5:21-24; Mic 6:6-8, ritual-without-hearing critique

Judicial hardening / closed ear

Isa 6:9-10, shimu shamoa, the hardening commission
Ezek 3:27, "he that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear"
Mt 13:14-15; Acts 28:26-27, NT citations

The Servant's hearing

Isaiah 50.4, "he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught"
Isa 55:1-3, "incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live"

Cosmic summons-to-hear

Isaiah 1.2, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth", the covenant-lawsuit opening
Mic 6:1-2, "Hear ye what Jehovah saith... hear, O ye mountains", parallel covenant-lawsuit

Patristic / scholarly note

The patristic and Reformed traditions preserve the Hebrew shama anthropology. Augustine (Tractates on John 26.3-4), develops audire (Lat. "to hear") as the proper response to the verbum Dei; faith comes by hearing (Rom 10:17). Calvin (Institutes III.2.6), the verbum externum (external word preached) is the instrumental cause of faith; hearing is not bare auditory uptake but Spirit-quickened reception. Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics I.1 §4), the Word of God is received in hearing; theology's first posture is Hörbereitschaft (readiness-to-hear).

The Jewish liturgical tradition preserves the Shema as the central daily confession (recited morning and evening per Berakhot 1:1-4); rabbinic Judaism reads the imperative shema as commanding the whole life-pattern of Torah-obedience, not bare auditory uptake. The structural overlap with Christian theology of faith comes by hearing (Rom 10:17) is substantial, both traditions resist the Hellenistic split between information and response.

Modern Christian engagement: Christopher Wright (The Mission of God, 2006), on the Shema as the missional confession; Daniel Block (Deuteronomy NIVAC, 2012); Patrick Miller (Deuteronomy Interpretation, 1990); Jon Levenson (The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism, 2016), Jewish scholar treating the Shema's love-command and hearing-anthropology.

Verses in this codex

See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here. Anchors: Deuteronomy 6.4 (the Shema), 1 Samuel 15.22 (obey-better-than-sacrifice), Isaiah 6.9-10 (judicial hardening), Isaiah 50.4 (Servant's ear), Isaiah 55.1-3 (incline-and-live), 1 Samuel 3.9-10 (Samuel's call), Isaiah 1.2, Micah 6.1-2.

Notes

Lexical workspace for shama.