What Does Isaiah 11:16 Mean?
And there will be a highway for the remnant of his people that remains from Assyria, as it was for Israel on the day he went up out of the land of Egypt.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.THE KEY
The remnant is not the end of the people; it is the people for whom the road is raised again.
THE MEANING
You meet the same movement in your own constriction: what remains of you is not abandoned in place; a way is raised through it. The exodus image names deliverance as a road that brings a people out of narrowness and toward room to move.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What remains after loss is too little to carry a future. Here the remnant, the people left, is precisely who receives a road forward.
THE ROOT
מְסִלָּה
mesillah
GROWS FROM
ס־ל־ל
s-l-l
To raise up, build up, or cast up.
מְסִלָּה (mesillah, a raised highway) grows from ס־ל־ל (s-l-l, to raise or cast up). The road is presented as something elevated and prepared across an obstruction: the remnant’s way forward is made passable.
ALSO GROWS
sollû: Raise or cast up.
סֹלּוּ
This command appears with “the highway” in Isaiah 62:10, showing the road as something raised and prepared for passage.
solelah: A raised siege mound or ramp.
סֹלְלָה
The same root names a raised earthwork; here, what is raised becomes a route for the people left.
שְׁאָר
she’ar yisha’er
GROWS FROM
ש־א־ר
sh-ʾ-r
To remain or be left over.
The verse calls the people a remnant and describes them as those who remain, using forms of ש־א־ר (sh-ʾ-r, to remain). English can make “remnant” sound like a fixed category; the Hebrew repeats the fact of remaining, then gives those who remain a way forward.
ALSO GROWS
she’ar: Remnant; what remains.
שְׁאָר
This noun names the people for whom the highway is made.
sha’ar: To remain or be left.
שָׁאַר
The related verb describes those who remain from Assyria, tying their survival directly to the promise of a path.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance makes a passage through the very barrier that seems to close the way.
And the children of Israel walked on the dry ground in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.A fresh and living way that he opened anew for us through the hanging curtain of his flesh;THE THREAD
A raised road is there, and a way, and it is called the way set apart. The unclean do not cross it, but it is for those who walk. Even the foolish do not wander there.Isaiah uses the same word מְסִלָּה (mesillah, a raised highway) for the way in the wilderness. The road for the remnant belongs to a recurring vision: the passage itself is raised into reach, and those traveling it are not left to find their own way.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us