What Does Isaiah 13:9 Mean?
Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel with heat and the burning of anger, to empty the land; and it will wipe its ones who miss the mark out of it.
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
Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “wrath” shares its root with “crossing,” adding movement beneath the emotion as the day lays the land waste.
THE MEANING
The day of the LORD comes as a cruel force, with wrath and burning anger that lay the land desolate and destroy its sinners. The violence reaches both the land and those who live in it.
THE ROOT
עֶבְרָה
ʿevrāh
GROWS FROM
עבר
עבר (ʿ-b-r; ʿāvar): pass, cross over, go across.
“heat” in this verse is ʿevrāh. The word translated “wrath” belongs to the same family as words for passing and crossing, layering movement beneath the emotion-word. Here that force is directed toward making the land desolate.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass, cross over.
עָבַר
This verb makes visible the motion carried by the same consonants as the noun for wrath.
ʿēver: The other side; beyond or across.
עֵבֶר
This noun preserves the root’s crossing sense and adds a spatial resonance beneath “wrath.”
חַטָּאֶיהָ
ḥaṭṭāʾêhā
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (ḥ-ṭ-ʾ; ḥāṭāʾ): miss, fail, sin.
“ones who miss the mark” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾêhā. The word for “sinners” shares its seed with חֵטְא (ḥēṭʾ, sin or missing) and חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, sin; in ritual use, an offering for the missing). The verse names people through this root, then states their fate directly: destruction from the land.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēṭʾ: Sin; a missing or failure.
חֵטְא
It shows the root’s range from the act or condition of missing to the people named by it.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin; in ritual use, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This branch keeps the same root while showing how the word-family can name both the missing and a response associated with it.
לְשַׁמָּה
ləšammāh
GROWS FROM
שמם
שמם (š-m-m; šāmēm): be desolate, be appalled.
“empty the land” in this verse is ləšammāh. The form translated “desolate” shares its seed with words for desolation and for being desolate or appalled. The land itself becomes waste, while the verse also names the destruction of its inhabitants.
ALSO GROWS
šəmāmāh: Desolation; waste.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun makes the condition named in the verse explicit: the land becomes desolation.
šāmēm: To be desolate; to be appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This verb shows the same root describing a state of desolation or shock.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s judgment is portrayed as an upheaval that reaches both the land and those who inhabit it.
The earth shall be emptied through and through, and plundered through and through, for the LORD has spoken this word.The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt, and the earth heaves up before his face, the world and all who settle in it.But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass by with a rushing roar, and the building blocks shall melt in scorching heat; the earth also, and the works in it, shall be burned down.THE THREAD
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking oven and a torch of fire passed between these split pieces.Isaiah’s עֶבְרָה (ʿevrāh, wrath) shares the root עבר (ʿ-b-r, pass or cross) with וַיַּעֲבֹר (wayyaʿăvōr, passed) in this verse. The shared root gives the word for wrath a movement resonance that English does not show.
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