What Does Isaiah 14:28 Mean?
In the year that king Ahaz died, this was the burden.
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
In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.THE KEY
When the grasping ends, the carried weight is lifted into speech.
THE MEANING
The verse places a burden at the edge of an ending. Ahaz’s name carries the sense of grasping, while “burden” names what is lifted and carried; when a grip ends in your life, its weight can still come into view as something named. The verse does not say the weight vanishes at the moment of ending.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The end of a controlling grip does not mean the weight it held disappears; this verse lets the burden come into view at the point of ending.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
nāsāʾ
Lift, carry, bear.
The Hebrew מַשָּׂא (massāʾ, burden or weighty utterance) holds together what English separates: weight carried and speech spoken. The burden here is a carried weight given voice.
ALSO GROWS
nāsāʾ: Lift, carry, bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb is the seed beneath “burden”: the word carries the sense of weight being lifted and borne.
nāśîʾ: Leader, prince.
נָשִׂיא
This title is linked to the same lift-and-carry root; one raised to lead also bears weight.
אָחָז
ʾĀḥāz
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾāḥaz
Grasp, seize, take hold.
Ahaz’s name carries the action of grasping. Set beside the burden lifted into speech, it makes the verse turn on a striking hinge: a hold ends as a weight is named.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: Grasp, seize, take hold.
אָחַז
The name carries this root’s action of holding.
neʾĕḥaz: Caught, held fast.
נֶאֱחַז
This form shows the same root as something held; the verse places the end of a hold beside a burden that comes into view.
THE PATTERN
What weighs on a life can be brought into view, carried, and shared.
The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.Even to old age I AM, and to gray hair I will bear you. I have made, and I will lift, I will bear, and I will slip you free.Carry one another's weights, and so you fill up the instruction of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Even to old age I AM, and to gray hair I will bear you. I have made, and I will lift, I will bear, and I will slip you free.The verb translated “bear” grows from the same root as the word for “burden” here: נשא (nāsāʾ, lift, carry, bear). Isaiah 14:28 names the weight; Isaiah 46:4 shows that the same root can also name carrying it.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us