What Does Isaiah 2:16 Mean?
And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon every pleasing sight.
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 upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.THE KEY
The “pleasant pictures” are desirable things, so the verse places what draws human desire among the things the LORD brings low.
THE MEANING
Even the ships you see as impressive and the things you prize for their beauty fall within the LORD’s humbling. Their distance, splendor, or desirability does not make them untouchable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what is beautiful, costly, or beyond reach can stand outside the LORD’s reckoning.
THE ROOT
הַחֲמֻדּוֹת
haḥamudot
GROWS FROM
חמד
ḥ-m-d
To desire, take pleasure in, or covet.
The Hebrew behind “pleasant” comes from the root of desire and coveting, so the phrase names things that draw desire, not merely things that look nice. The verse places what is coveted among the things brought low, showing how desirability can become part of human pride.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmad: To desire or covet.
חָמַד
This verb shares the root in “pleasant,” revealing the desire beneath the things the verse describes.
maḥmād: A desirable or precious thing.
מַחְמָד
This noun names an object by the desire it attracts, echoing the verse’s “pleasant pictures.”
THE PATTERN
Human pride and the heights it builds are brought low, while the LORD alone is exalted.
And the height of man shall bow down, and the heights of men shall be brought low; and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
You shall not desire your neighbor's house. You shall not desire your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.The word translated “covet” comes from the same root, חמד, as “pleasant” in Isaiah 2:16. One verse names desire fastening onto what belongs to another; the other places desirable things among the objects brought low.
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