What Does Isaiah 19:16 Mean?
In that day Egypt will be like women, and it will tremble and be shattered because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shakes over it.
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 that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it.THE KEY
The LORD’s moving hand turns Egypt’s apparent strength into trembling and dread.
THE MEANING
The verse names a moment when a power that seems settled becomes unsteady beneath the LORD’s hand. Its terror is both bodily trembling and fear that takes hold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that visible power cannot be shaken gives way here: Egypt trembles when the LORD’s hand moves over it.
THE ROOT
תְּנוּפַת
tenufat
GROWS FROM
נוף
n-w-p
To wave, lift, or brandish.
“shaking” in this verse is tenufat. The hand’s motion is active and visible: it is waved over Egypt, and that movement brings the nation to trembling. The same root also names something lifted and waved before the LORD, so the word holds a gesture of presentation as well as force.
ALSO GROWS
tenufah: A wave offering; something lifted and waved before the LORD.
תְּנוּפָה
The shared root links the hand’s waving motion here with an offering waved before the LORD.
henif: He waved or lifted.
הֵנִיף
This verb uses the same root for the LORD’s hand-waving in Isaiah 11:15, where the hand moves over the river.
וְחָרְדוּ
vecharadu
GROWS FROM
חרד
ḥ-r-d
To tremble, quake, or be terrified.
“tremble” in this verse is vecharadu. The first response is not only an inner feeling: the word pictures the body trembling. Paired with the following word for fear, it gives the verse two dimensions of terror, shaking and dread.
ALSO GROWS
charadah: Trembling or terror.
חֲרָדָה
This noun names the bodily disturbance contained in the verb used for Egypt’s response.
chared: One who trembles or is afraid.
חָרֵד
The related form describes a person marked by trembling, making fear a visible state as well as an inward one.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD’s action meets what appears secure, even great power gives way to trembling.
And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea. He will wave his hand over the river with his strong breath, and strike it into seven channels, and make men tread across in sandals.And Israel saw the great hand that the LORD brought upon the Egyptians, and the people stood in awe of the LORD, and they committed themselves to the LORD and to his servant Moses.whose voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”THE THREAD
And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea. He will wave his hand over the river with his strong breath, and strike it into seven channels, and make men tread across in sandals.Both verses use נוף (n-w-p), “to wave or lift,” for the LORD’s hand moving over Egypt’s waters. Isaiah 11:15 makes the shared image plain: the hand’s motion is part of how the waters themselves are made passable.
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