What Does Isaiah 13:20 Mean?
It will never be settled, nor dwelt in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
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
It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.THE KEY
The emptiness is total when even the land’s ordinary patterns of home and care no longer return.
THE MEANING
The place is emptied beyond the loss of residents: no tent is pitched, and no flock is settled there. Its absence of life stretches from one generation into the next, so even the ordinary rhythms of shelter and tending do not return.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a place is permanent simply because generations have lived in it.
THE ROOT
תֵשֵׁב
tēshēv
GROWS FROM
ישב
yashav
To sit, remain, or dwell.
“settled” in this verse is tēshēv. The verse begins with no one sitting, staying, or making a life there; yashav gathers inhabiting into the act of remaining. Its branches connect the person who settles in with the place where people dwell, sharpening how completely the verse removes human presence.
ALSO GROWS
yōshēv: One who sits or dwells; an inhabitant.
יֹשֵׁב
The absence is not only of a crowd but of anyone who remains.
mōshav: A seat, dwelling, or place of residence.
מוֹשָׁב
The root can name both the act of staying and the place made a home.
תִשְׁכֹּן
tishkōn
GROWS FROM
שכן
shakan
To settle or dwell.
“dwelt in” in this verse is tishkōn. This second verb deepens the vacancy: no one establishes a continuing dwelling there. The same root can name a dwelling place or a neighbor, forms of settled presence that this landscape no longer holds.
ALSO GROWS
mishkan: A dwelling place; a tabernacle.
מִשְׁכָּן
The root can describe a place where presence settles, which makes its negation here stark.
shākēn: A neighbor; one who dwells nearby.
שָׁכֵן
The absence extends even to the neighboring human presence implied by the root.
רֹעִים
roʿim
GROWS FROM
רעה
raʿah
To tend, pasture, or feed.
“shepherds” in this verse is roʿim. The verse removes more than settled residents: it removes the care that lets flocks live on the land. The root links the shepherd’s tending with pasture and feeding, so even this ordinary use of the place ceases.
ALSO GROWS
raʿah: To tend, pasture, or feed.
רָעָה
The verb names the work of caring for a flock, which no longer happens there.
mirʿeh: Pasture or grazing land.
מִרְעֶה
The root also names the land’s provision for flocks, absent from this picture of desolation.
THE PATTERN
The desolation of a place is shown through the disappearance of ordinary dwelling, passage, and work.
It does not go out night or day, and its smoke rises for the ages. From generation to generation it lies dry, and no one passes through it for ages and ages.Therefore the wild beasts of the desert shall lodge there with the wild beasts of the islands, and the ostriches shall lodge in it. It shall not be settled again forever, nor lodged in from generation to generation.And the sound of those who pluck the harp, and of the makers of song, and of those who blow the pipe, and of those who sound the trumpet, shall be heard no more at all in you; and no hand of any craft shall be found in you any longer; and the sound of the grinding stone shall be heard no more at all in you;THE THREAD
The aligned will inherit the land and pitch their tent in it for the ages.The word translated “dwell” shares the shakan root with “dwelt” in Isaiah. Here dwelling is denied to shepherds; in the psalm, it names the righteous’ lasting place on the land, so the shared root holds absence and enduring habitation side by side.
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