What Does Isaiah 2:10 Mean?
Enter into the rock, and bury yourself in the dust, from the dread of the LORD and from the splendor of his majesty.
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
Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.THE KEY
The Hebrew root for hiding also forms a word for hidden treasure, making the descent into rock and dust an image of what is concealed beneath the surface before the LORD’s majesty.
THE MEANING
The reader stands before the LORD’s majesty with the instinct to disappear into rock and dust. The verse lets fear remain fear: the concealed place is sought because the divine presence is overwhelming.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that human status or strength can keep a person untouched before the LORD’s majesty.
THE ROOT
הִטָּמֵן
hittāmēn
GROWS FROM
טמן
To hide, conceal, or bury.
“bury yourself” in this verse is hittāmēn. The verse’s form, הִטָּמֵן (hittāmēn, hide yourself), comes from טמן (ṭ-m-n, hide or bury); one branch, מַטְמוֹן (maṭmôn), means a hidden treasure. This word family holds concealment and what is laid away beneath a surface together, making the refuge in rock and dust an image of the self being covered over.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmûn: Hidden, concealed.
טָמוּן
This branch shares the root’s consonants and names the state of being hidden that the verse’s command seeks.
maṭmôn: A hidden treasure or hoard.
מַטְמוֹן
This word shares the root’s consonants and shows that what is buried is concealed beneath the surface, not necessarily erased.
THE PATTERN
When divine majesty confronts human beings, they seek cover in the created world.
And they shall enter the caves of the rock, and the hollows of the dust, from the dread of the LORD and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to make the earth tremble.Also the high places of Aven, the falling short of Israel, shall be laid waste. The thorn and the thistle shall climb up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, "Cover us," and to the hills, "Fall on us."And the kings of the earth, and the great ones, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every servant and every free one hide themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of the one seated upon the throne, and from the burning anger of the Lamb.THE THREAD
When I saw among the plunder a good mantle from Shinar, and two hundred weights of silver, and a tongue of gold of fifty weights, then I desired them and took them. And look, they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver beneath it.Joshua 7:21 uses the same root טמן (ṭ-m-n, hide or bury) for goods concealed in the earth. The shared seed links a hidden hoard with the reader’s urge to disappear beneath rock and dust before the LORD’s majesty.
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