šāmaʿ

Semantic range

1. 1to hear a sound
2. 2to listen attentively, to heed
3. 3to obey — the same verb, no separate word needed

Hebrew has no dedicated verb for "obey." It says hear. The great confession of Israel, recited twice daily, is named for its first word: "Šəmaʿ yiśrāʾēl, YHWH ʾĕlōhênû, YHWH ʾeḥād" — "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4), followed immediately by the command Jesus called the first of all (Mark 12:29–30).

The collapse of hearing into obeying is a whole theology of discipleship in one lexical fact. To have heard and not done is, in Hebrew, not to have heard. James makes the point in Greek (James 1:22), and the Lord makes it in modern revelation: "why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (compare D&C 41:5).

Where it appears

• Deuteronomy 6:4–5The Shema — the confession of Israel's faith.
• 1 Samuel 15:22"To obey is better than sacrifice" — the verb in argument.

See also

• תּוֹרָהtôrāh
• לֵבlēb / lēbāb
• ὑπακοήhypakoē