What Does Isaiah 13:14 Mean?
And it will be like a driven gazelle, and like a sheep that no one gathers in; they will each turn to their own people, and each will flee into their own land.
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 it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.THE KEY
The flock is not merely fleeing: no one gathers it, so each person turns toward a separate place of belonging.
THE MEANING
When you are driven out, you turn toward your own people and familiar ground; the verse names the danger plainly: there is no one gathering the flock. Flight here is a response to being pursued and left scattered.
THE ROOT
מְקַבֵּץ
meqabēts one who
GROWS FROM
קבץ
q-b-ts
Gather, collect, bring together.
“gathers in” in this verse is meqabēts one who. The scene carries more than the image of a sheep not taken up: it names the absence of anyone gathering the flock. The loss is communal; no one collects these scattered lives into one.
ALSO GROWS
qibbuts: A gathering or collection.
קִבּוּץ
It makes the missing action visible: the flock has no one to bring it together.
qevutsah: A group or collection.
קְבוּצָה
The people remain separate rather than forming a gathered whole.
מֻדָּח
muddaḥ driven away
GROWS FROM
נדח
n-d-ḥ
Drive away, thrust out, banish.
This word carries the force of being pushed out of place. Beside the absent gatherer, it shows how the flight begins: people are driven away, then scatter.
ALSO GROWS
niddaḥ: An outcast or person driven away.
נִדָּח
It names the condition behind the flight in the verse.
nidḥē: Those driven away or scattered.
נִדְחֵי
The plural form reveals how one act of displacement becomes a people scattered across places.
יִפְנוּ
yifnū they turn
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
Turn toward, face.
“turn” in this verse is yifnū they turn. This verb gives the flight a direction: each person turns toward their own people and land. The root also carries the sense of facing, so the movement points toward familiar presence and belonging.
ALSO GROWS
panah: Turned or faced toward.
פָּנָה
It shows that the movement is directed toward someone or somewhere, not simply away from danger.
panim: Face or presence.
פָּנִים
The shared word-shape links turning with facing toward another.
THE PATTERN
Threatened people scatter when the gathering hand is absent, and scripture repeatedly names gathering the dispersed as restoration.
If any of yours are driven away to the outermost edge of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.As a shepherd looks over his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so I will look over my sheep. I will snatch them out of every place where they were scattered in the day of cloud and thick darkness.But seeing the crowds, his insides moved for them, because they were loosened and thrown down, like sheep having no shepherd.THE THREAD
Turn your face to me and show me favor, for I am alone and bowed down.The same root, פנה (panah, to turn or face toward), appears here as פְּנֵה (p’neh, turn toward). In Isaiah, each person turns toward their own people while fleeing; here, the desolate person asks another to turn toward them.
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