What Does Isaiah 21:16 Mean?
For thus the Lord said to me, Within a year, as the years of a hired hand, all the weight of Kedar shall run out.
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
For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:THE KEY
The verse calls glory weight, and then gives that weight a deadline.
THE MEANING
The verse places Kedar’s glory under a hard horizon: within a year, its weight ends. The hired worker’s term makes that limit exact, reminding the reader that what feels formidable now is not thereby permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what carries great weight must endure.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
to be heavy; weight
The root holds physical heaviness and honor together: what has glory has weight or consequence. Here, the weight of a people is not mere shine; it is a real presence that still has an end.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
The concrete sense of heaviness reveals the physical depth beneath the English word “glory.”
kibbed: to honor, give weight to
כִּבֵּד
Honor is expressed as giving weight, sharpening the contrast between Kedar’s present standing and its coming end.
שָׂכִיר
sakhir
GROWS FROM
שׂכר
to hire for wages; pay wages
“as the years of a hired hand” in this verse is sakhir. The year is measured by the term of a hired worker, making the limit feel counted and definite. The comparison gives the prophecy a boundary as precise as an agreed period of work.
ALSO GROWS
sakar: wages, pay, reward
שָׂכָר
The wage belongs to a measured term of work, echoing the verse’s exact measure of time.
sakar: to hire, pay wages
שָׂכַר
The hiring root brings a fixed work period into the image, framing Kedar’s remaining time as bounded.
כָּלָה
kalah
GROWS FROM
כלה
to be completed, come to an end
“shall run out” in this verse is kalah. The verb carries the sense of reaching an end or being completed. Kedar’s weight does not simply falter; the verse gives its ending a defined limit.
ALSO GROWS
we-kalah: and it shall come to an end
וְכָלָה
This is the verse’s own verb for the end of Kedar’s glory.
killah: he finished, completed, or consumed
כִּלָּה
This related form shows the root’s connection between completion and something brought to its end.
THE PATTERN
Human weight and splendor remain within measured limits.
Since his days are cut, and the number of his months is with you, you set his carved limits that he cannot pass over.The grass dries, the flower withers, but the word of our God stands for the ages.For all flesh is as grass, and all its weight is as the blossom of grass. The grass dries, and the blossom falls.THE THREAD
And in that day, the weight of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fat of his flesh shall grow lean.Both verses use kavod, “weight,” for a people’s glory. Jacob’s weight is made thin here; Kedar’s reaches its end within a year, showing glory as something measurable and capable of diminishing.
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