What Does Isaiah 11:9 Mean?
They will not do harm and will not ruin in all my set-apart mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowing of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
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
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.THE KEY
The verse makes a world without harm the overflow of knowing the LORD: that knowing covers the earth as completely as water covers the sea.
THE MEANING
On the LORD’s holy mountain, hurt and destruction cease. Knowing the LORD fills the earth, reaching everywhere like waters covering the sea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that harm and destruction must always shape the world is overturned: this verse holds open a world filled with the knowledge of the LORD, where hurt and ruin cease.
THE ROOT
דֵּעָה
de’ah
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive.
The Hebrew noun grows from the verb for knowing and perceiving, so the verse presents knowledge as more than a store of facts. The knowing of the LORD fills the earth, as water surrounds the sea.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This verb is the seed beneath “knowledge,” joining what is known to the act of knowing.
da’at: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun shares the same root and shows how knowing takes form as understanding.
THE PATTERN
The knowledge of the LORD spreads until it fills the earth, as completely as water covers the sea.
And one called out to another, and said, Set apart, set apart, set apart is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his weight.For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the weight of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.And they will not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all will know me, from the small to the great.THE THREAD
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the weight of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.The Hebrew word for “knowledge” here and Habakkuk’s word for “to know” grow from the same root. Habakkuk repeats the image of waters covering the sea, revealing the reach of this knowing as earth-wide.
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