(To fully understand the context of this verse and its place in the chapter, please refer to my section on Conjunctions)
How many times have we as believers heard and read this passage, and dedicated ourselves more to "listening" and "hearing" what God is trying to tell us through His Word and scripture? Several translations have lost the essence of this critical scripture totally, and I will endeavor to analyze this scripture in it's most original format and context.
The ASV says: "So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ" and the ISV: "Consequently, faith results from listening, and listening results through the word of the Messiah", and the ever popular NIV: "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." It is not only bibles that may get the central idea a bit wrong, as I am sure that we have even heard people say that "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God", where either for convenience or lack of knowledge, they omit that small two-letter word, "by".
For this piece, and most others, I will be using the King James Version (KJV) of 1769 with Strong's Numbers, courtesy of e-Sword (C) 2020.
Let's look at the verse in totality: Romans 10:17 - So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Now even if we take this scripture at face value, its meaning appears to be clear: We will get / receive / strengthen faith if we listen to God through what He teaches in the Bible. This is not in itself untrue, since there is no better and more critical way for any Christian to develop and grow our faith in God, than to study His word in detail. The verse actually holds a deeper truth in how we are to understand what it says to us, and the impact this has on how we are to look at the Word(s) of God.
Let's look at this scripture by breaking it down into two parts:
Part One: (KJV) Romans 10:17 "So then faith cometh by hearing,..."
If we look firstly at how this section of the verse is composed in the KJV, we will notice that the word "cometh" was added, and was not in the original text, but was added to make the sentence more understandable. With the word "cometh" in the sentence, the main emphasis of this portion of the sentence appears to be "Receiving" something: faith, if we listen.
If we now remove the word that was added, "cometh", the verse takes on a totally different concept in that it now reads:
Romans 10:17 - "So then faith by hearing....".
The removal of the word "Cometh", changes the emphasis and focus of the entire first section of this verse, into something that requires an action on our part, a "doing". This means to actively practice faith by using the skill of hearing.
The emphasis in the sentence now shifts from the "cometh" to "hearing". Now this is where things get really interesting. If we look at the meaning of the two "by's" used in this verse, they have completely different meanings. The first "by" in this section, means exactly as we read it, and in the original language denotes as being "an origin" (Strongs G1537) to the next word, which in this case is "Hearing". Now lets look at the second part of the verse.
Part Two: (KJV) "..., and hearing by the word of God".
Now the next "by", in actual fact translates as "the channel of an act, through" (Strongs G1223). The translation of this "by" could then have us rephrase the verse to read something like: "...and hearing God through the channel of His word." This now shows us that hearing is a channel of "the word of God", through which He speaks to us and reveals Himself to us, thus strengthening our faith.
Let's read that complete scripture again: Romans 10:17 - "So then faith by hearing, and hearing by the word of God".
My translation of this scripture thus says:
If we listen to the Word of God with our physical and spiritual ears, the Word of God is the channel, not the end goal, that will reveal His majesty, blessings and power to us. Once we see that power through His word, our faith will strengthen.
As an end note, please do not read any scripture in isolation. I have written a piece on Conjunction that would greatly assist in understanding and reading the Bible and scripture in context.