What Does Isaiah 19:10 Mean?
And they will be crushed in their foundations, all who work for wages.
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
And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.THE KEY
What is crushed at the foundation reaches the workers and the living things the system sustains.
THE MEANING
When the supports beneath a livelihood are crushed, the harm reaches the people who make and depend on it. The verse joins foundations, work, and ponds that hold living creatures: what happens to a system is felt by the lives sustained through it. In “ponds for fish,” the Hebrew word nefesh also carries the sense of living soul, life, and appetite.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that structural collapse is only abstract: what is crushed at the base reaches the people and living beings held within the system.
THE ROOT
מְדֻכָּאִים
medukka'im
GROWS FROM
דכא
To crush or press down.
“crushed” in this verse is medukka'im. The form rendered “broken” comes from a word for crushing down. Its use for what is brought low makes the damage feel physical and weighty, not merely a change of plans.
ALSO GROWS
medukka: Crushed, bruised.
מְדֻכָּא
Isaiah 53:5 uses this form for one who is bruised, carrying the verse’s image of force pressing something down.
dakka: Crushed, contrite.
דַּכָּא
Isaiah 57:15 uses the word for one who is brought low, extending the root’s image from foundations to a person.
שָׁתֹתֶיהָ
shatoteha
GROWS FROM
שית
To set, place, or lay down.
The word rendered “purposes” belongs to a family that also names foundations and what is set in place. That connection lets the verse hold intention and its underlying supports together: what has been established can be crushed.
ALSO GROWS
shatot: Foundations, supports.
שָׁתוֹת
Psalm 11:3 uses this same form for foundations, making the underlying structure audible within Isaiah’s wording.
ashit: I will set or place.
אָשִׁית
Genesis 3:15 uses this verb for placing something in position, showing the root’s basic action of establishing.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
A living soul or being; life, person, or appetite. The related verb can mean to rest or be refreshed.
The Hebrew phrase for “ponds for fish” ends with nefesh, a word for the living soul, life, person, or appetite. The concrete fish ponds remain in view, while the word also keeps audible the living beings and needs held by that provision.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul; a living being, person, life, or appetite.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word behind the pond phrase, bringing the life sustained by the waters into the verse’s image.
vayinnafash: And he was refreshed.
וַיִּנָּפַשׁ
Exodus 31:17 uses this related verb for being refreshed, connecting the root with restored life and rest.
THE PATTERN
When a foundation gives way, the effects reach the people who labor within the system and the life it sustains.
If the foundations are torn down, what can the aligned one do?Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
If the foundations are torn down, what can the aligned one do?Isaiah’s שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha, its supports or foundations) shares its root with Psalm’s שָׁתוֹת (shatot, foundations). Psalm 11:3 makes the structural force of Isaiah’s line clear: when what is set beneath a system gives way, what rests on it is exposed.
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