What Does Isaiah 14:23 Mean?
I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and standing waters; and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.
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
I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts.THE KEY
The verse pictures ownership passing from a city to a bittern and pools of water, before destruction sweeps across the place.
THE MEANING
The reader sees human possession give way to wild life, pooled water, and a sweep of destruction. The verse confronts any claim to permanence with a scene of complete dispossession.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a powerful place can permanently secure its claim to the future.
THE ROOT
מוֹרָשׁ
morash
GROWS FROM
י־ר־שׁ
y-r-sh
Take possession; inherit; dispossess.
“possession” in this verse is morash. The word can carry the sense of inheritance, so the verse pictures more than an abandoned place: its occupancy is transferred. The bittern becomes the recipient of what the city has become.
ALSO GROWS
yarash: Take possession; inherit
יָרַשׁ
This verb names the act of claiming or inheriting that underlies the verse’s image of transferred possession.
morashah: Possession; inheritance
מוֹרָשָׁה
This related noun makes the inheritance sense of the place’s new status visible.
טָאטָא
ṭāṭāʾ
GROWS FROM
ט־א־ט־א
quadriliteral
Sweep; clear away.
The verse repeats the sweep-root in both the action and the broom named as its instrument. That sound-level pairing sharpens the image of thorough clearing.
ALSO GROWS
veṭēʾāṭēʾtîhā: And I will sweep it
וְטֵאטֵאתִיהָ
This is the sweeping action applied to the place itself.
maṭʾăṭēʾ: Broom
מַטְאֲטֵא
The instrument bears the same root as the action, binding the image of sweeping to its tool.
הַשְׁמֵד
hashmed
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ד
sh-m-d
Destroy; annihilate.
The broom is explicitly linked with destruction, giving the sweep its hard edge. The verse holds the image at desolation, not gentle repair.
ALSO GROWS
shamad: Destroy; perish
שָׁמַד
This root verb supplies the force behind the destruction named in the verse.
hishmid: Destroy; wipe out
הִשְׁמִיד
This related verb carries the sense of bringing destruction upon something.
THE PATTERN
When a human-ordered place is emptied, wildness takes the vacated space and desolation becomes visible.
The pelican and the hedgehog take hold of it, and the owl and the raven pitch their tents in it. He stretches out upon it the measuring cord of waste and the stones of emptiness.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 he cried out with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen, and has become the place where demons settle, and the holding place of every unclean breath, and the holding place of every unclean and hated bird.THE THREAD
The pelican and the hedgehog take hold of it, and the owl and the raven pitch their tents in it. He stretches out upon it the measuring cord of waste and the stones of emptiness.Isaiah 14:23 calls the place a מוֹרָשׁ (morash, possession or inheritance) for the bittern; Isaiah 34:11 uses יָרַשׁ (yarash, possess or inherit) for that bird’s claim. Both words grow from י־ר־שׁ (y-r-sh, possess or inherit), so the repeated bird and root make the transfer explicit.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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