What Does Isaiah 14:27 Mean?
For the LORD of hosts has counseled, and who will break it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
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
For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?THE KEY
What the LORD has counseled is already reaching outward as an extended hand, and no one can break the counsel or turn the action back.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s counsel is settled, and his hand is already stretched out. No opposition can annul what he has purposed or draw that hand back.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that opposition has the final veto, that a stronger counterforce can cancel what the LORD has set in motion.
THE ROOT
יָעַץ
yaʿats
GROWS FROM
י־ע־ץ
counsel
To counsel, advise, or form a plan.
The word translated “purposed” carries the sense of counsel: the LORD’s action proceeds from considered direction. English can make it sound like a private intention; the Hebrew connects the purpose to counsel that stands and takes effect.
ALSO GROWS
ʿetsah: Counsel, advice, plan.
עֵצָה
This noun makes the root’s connection between counsel and purpose explicit: the verse’s “purposed” is an act of counsel.
yoʿets: Counselor, adviser.
יוֹעֵץ
The related title names one who gives counsel, showing that the root concerns directed judgment, not a passing wish.
יָפֵר
yāfēr
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ר
break apart
To break apart, frustrate, or make something ineffective.
“break it” in this verse is yāfēr. The question asks who can break apart the counsel and make it fail. The verse’s certainty is stated through the impossibility of undoing what has been set in motion.
ALSO GROWS
hēfēr: He broke or violated.
הֵפֵר
This form shows the root’s force as breaking something established, the very power the verse denies to any opponent.
pēr: He made void or frustrated.
פֵּר
The related verb clarifies that “disannul” means more than disagreeing: it is an attempt to render the counsel ineffective.
יְשִׁיבֶנָּה
yeshîvennāh
GROWS FROM
שׁ־וּ־ב
return
To return, turn back, or bring back.
“turn it back” in this verse is yeshîvennāh. The verse moves from a counsel that cannot be broken to a hand that cannot be turned back. The same root describes return or reversal, making the final question about whether the LORD’s action can be made to retreat.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To return or turn back.
שׁוּב
This is the root verb behind the question: can anyone make the extended hand return? The verse answers with its implied no.
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun preserves the root’s movement of reversal, sharpening the image of an action being made to retreat.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s counsel cannot be broken, and the action that follows it cannot be restrained.
The counsel of the LORD stands for the ages, the plans of his heart from generation to generation.And all who sit upon the earth are counted as nothing, and he does according to his will in the strength of heaven, and among those who sit upon the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say to him, What have you done?In him we also have been allotted an inheritance, marked out beforehand according to the aim of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.THE THREAD
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.“Purposed” in Isaiah 14:27 comes from י־ע־ץ, the root of the “counsel” named here. Isaiah 46:10 makes the link plain: the counsel stands, and the LORD acts on it.
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