What Does Isaiah 16:6 Mean?
We have heard of the swelling of Moab, how high he rises, his swelling and his lifting, and his overflow. But his hollow words will not make it so.
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
We have heard of the pride of Moab; he is very proud: even of his haughtiness, and his pride, and his wrath: but his lies shall not be so.THE KEY
Moab’s pride is pictured as a rising claim, but the verse refuses to let that self-made height pass for truth.
THE MEANING
When pride and anger fill a claim with force, their intensity still does not make the claim true. The verse sets Moab’s repeated self-exaltation beside a blunt verdict: his boasts do not stand as he says they do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A claim made with enough pride or fury becomes true by force.
THE ROOT
גֵּא
gēʾ
GROWS FROM
גאה
גאה (gāʾāh): to rise, be high, or exalt oneself.
“how high he rises” in this verse is gēʾ. The verse calls Moab גֵּא (gēʾ), “proud,” and piles up related language for pride around it. The root’s sense of rising lets that pride read as a self-made height, while the closing verdict denies that height the power to establish its own claims.
ALSO GROWS
gāʾāh: to rise high, be exalted
גָּאָה
The verb shows the rising movement carried in the description of Moab as proud.
gaʾavah: pride, arrogance
גַּאֲוָה
This related noun shares the root consonants ג־א־ה and names the state produced by self-exaltation.
עֶבְרָתוֹ
ʿevrātô
GROWS FROM
עבר
עבר (ʿāvar): to pass, cross, or go beyond.
“overflow” in this verse is ʿevrātô. The word for wrath belongs to the עבר (ʿāvar) root family, whose basic movement is crossing or passing over. That gives the fury a sense of force crossing over, but the verse does not let that force make Moab’s boasts true.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: to pass or cross
עָבַר
This verb shares the root consonants ע־ב־ר and supplies the root’s basic movement.
maʿavār: a passage or crossing
מַעֲבָר
This noun keeps the same consonants and makes the root’s crossing movement concrete.
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation cannot establish its own height; pride meets a force that brings it low.
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.But he gives greater favor. Therefore it says, God sets himself against those who lift themselves high, and gives favor to those made low.THE THREAD
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.Proverbs uses גאון (gāʾôn), “pride,” from the same גאה (gāʾāh) root family that describes Moab as גֵּא (gēʾ), “proud.” Isaiah says Moab’s boasts do not stand; Proverbs shows the fall that follows pride’s attempted rise.
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