Stretch Out Your Ear

“Incline your ear ( הט־אזנך ), O Lord, and hear,” plead the psalmists. This collocation frequently occurs in parallel to verbs meaning “listen, hear” ( שׁמע, ‪הקשׁיב‬, האזין ), and its interpretation as “listen” poses no major difficulty. The translation of the hiphil of נטה as “incline” in this collocation, however, is curious. A study of the uses of both the qal and hiphil forms of נטה shows that the verb implies extension outwards or motion sideways, referring to stretching out a hand, turning someone aside, extending a shadow, or spreading out the heavens, a tent, or garments. Apart from a few cases in which a form of נטה has unnecessarily been interpreted as downward motion, it is primarily understood as movement sideways on a horizontal plane. The phrase נטה אזן , therefore, is better understood as a stretching out of the ear, not inclining or lowering it. Support for this claim, and the possible metaphor implicit therein, is suggested by a similar Akkadian collocation.