Bible Strands
Exodus 6:9
Moses relayed this message to the Israelites, but on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage, they did not listen to him.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses delivers God's promise of land inheritance to the Israelites immediately after Exodus 6:8, but they refuse to heed him. This occurs during their forced labor under Egyptian oppression, just before the LORD speaks to Moses again in Exodus 6:10.
The words — The Hebrew וַ/יְדַבֵּ֥ר (va/y.da.Ber) means "and he spoke," while שָֽׁמְעוּ֙ (sha.me.'U) means "they listened." These verbs frame the encounter as a direct verbal transmission that meets active refusal.
The thread — The pattern of hearing God's word yet rejecting it due to despair appears in Exodus 5:21 when the foremen complain, and in Exodus 14:12 when the people demand to return to Egypt. This same dynamic of complaint and impatience is echoed in Job 21:4.
Why it lands — The text states that broken spirit and cruel bondage caused the Israelites not to listen, establishing that despair actively blocks reception of divine instruction. It requires a reader to confront their own capacity to shut out God's promises when weighed down by suffering.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
Cross-references
- Exodus 5:21 “May the LORD look upon you and judge you,” the foremen said, “for you have made us a stench before Pharaoh and his officials; you have placed in their hand a sword to kill us!”
- Job 21:4 Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?
- Exodus 14:12 Did we not say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
- Numbers 21:4 Then they set out from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, in order to bypass the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient on the journey
- Proverbs 14:19 The evil bow before the good, and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.