What Does Isaiah 21:12 Mean?
The keeper said, The morning comes, and also night. If you will seek, seek. Turn and come.
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
The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.THE KEY
The watchman’s name comes from the root for guarding: dawn and darkness both fall within the watch.
THE MEANING
Your present hour can hold both morning and night; the light arriving does not erase the darkness that follows. The watchman names both plainly, then leaves the invitation open: return, come.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמֵר
shomer
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
sh-m-r
To keep, guard, or watch over.
“keeper” in this verse is shomer. The Hebrew word points to one who keeps watch, not merely someone who predicts what hour comes next. Its root also describes keeping a charge or guard duty, so the verse places the speaker in active watch across both morning and night.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: Keep, guard, watch.
שָׁמַר
The watchman is named from this action: he keeps watch over what is coming.
mishmeret: A charge, guard duty, or watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch makes the watchman’s role a sustained keeping, not a single announcement.
THE PATTERN
A watch spans darkness and dawn; neither hour falls outside the watcher’s care.
My living soul stretches toward the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.Look, the watcher of Israel neither nods nor sleeps.Stay awake therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house comes, in the evening, or at midnight, or at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning.THE THREAD
Look, the watcher of Israel neither nods nor sleeps.The Hebrew word for watchman in Isaiah and keepeth in this psalm both come from שׁמר (shamar), meaning to keep or guard. The shared root links the report of night and morning to a keeping that does not sleep.
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