What Does Isaiah 15:5 Mean?
My heart cries out for Moab. His fugitives flee to Zoar, a three-year-old heifer. For they climb the slope of Luhith in weeping, and on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of breaking.
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
My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall flee unto Zoar, an heifer of three years old: for by the mounting up of Luhith with weeping shall they go it up; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise up a cry of destruction.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names the heart’s cry for Moab and the fugitives’ cry of ruin, making compassion and catastrophe one sound.
THE MEANING
The heart cries for Moab while its fugitives run toward Zoar, climbing Luhith through tears as a cry of breaking rises along Horonaim. The grief of the one who sees and the terror of those fleeing occupy the same landscape; the ruin remains stark, yet the sufferers are not reduced to a distant report.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a people’s suffering can be dismissed because they are not one’s own.
THE ROOT
יִזְעָק
yiz'aq za'aqat
GROWS FROM
זעק
To cry out urgently, especially in distress.
“cry out” in this verse is yiz'aq za'aqat. The verse uses this root twice: the heart cries for Moab, then the fugitives raise a cry of ruin. English places the cries in separate clauses, while Hebrew gives them one shared root, the witness’s grief sounds in the same register as the sufferers’ distress.
ALSO GROWS
za'aq: To cry out or call in distress.
זָעַק
This verbal form names the heart’s cry for Moab.
ze'aqah: An outcry or cry of distress.
זְעָקָה
This noun comes from the same root as זַעֲקַת (za’aqat), the fugitives’ final cry, linking inward grief with outward distress.
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שבר
To break, fracture, or shatter.
The closing “destruction” is shever, breakage. The word gives the cry the force of something breaking apart, rather than leaving ruin as a distant abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
The verb makes the ruin in the cry an act of breaking, not just a final condition.
mishbar: A breaker or surf; a wave that breaks.
מִשְׁבָּר
This branch carries the root’s breaking force into an image of impact, sharpening the violence in the fugitives’ cry.
THE PATTERN
The devastation of a people sounds both in the sufferers’ cries and in the heart that grieves for them.
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.Therefore my heart moans for Moab like flutes, and my heart moans like them for the men of Kirheres. For the surplus he has made has perished.And when he drew near, perceiving the city, he wept over it.THE THREAD
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.Exodus uses זעק (za’aq, cry out) for both the people’s crying and their cry rising. Isaiah uses the same root first for the heart grieving for Moab, then for the fugitives’ cry; the shared seed makes witness and sufferers audible in one register.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us