What Does Isaiah 14:7 Mean?
The whole earth rests and is still, and they burst into song.
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
The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.THE KEY
Rest does not end in silence; the earth’s quiet breaks open into song.
THE MEANING
The earth rests and grows quiet, then song breaks out across it. In your present, release is more than private relief: when the grip of oppression loosens, joy can rise through a whole community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that quiet is numbness or emptiness dissolves here: quiet can be the settled ground from which joy breaks out.
THE ROOT
פָּצְחוּ
patschu
GROWS FROM
פצח
to burst open; to break forth
“burst into” in this verse is patschu. פצח carries the motion of breaking open, so this singing is a voice bursting out, not quiet background music. The same verb is given to mountains in Isaiah 55:12, widening the release from human relief to creation itself.
ALSO GROWS
patschu rinnah: they broke forth into singing
פָּצְחוּ רִנָּה
This is the phrase in the verse: song erupts as the earth comes to rest.
yif'tsechu lifnekhem rinnah: they shall break forth before you into singing
יִפְצְחוּ לִפְנֵיכֶם רִנָּה
Isaiah 55:12 uses the same root for mountains breaking into song, carrying release beyond the human voice.
THE PATTERN
When the grip of oppression loosens, release becomes audible as shared joy.
For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with a ringing cry. Then they said among the nations, The LORD has grown great in doing with these.Rejoice over her, heaven, and you set-apart ones, sent ones, and prophets; for God has judged your judgment out of her.THE THREAD
For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.Isaiah 55:12 uses the same root פצח (patsach, “break forth”) when the mountains break into song as the people go out in joy. The shared verb reveals release becoming audible across creation.
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