What Does Isaiah 22:6 Mean?
Elam lifted the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.
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 Elam bare the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.THE KEY
The verse makes military force visible in two motions: one force carries its weapons into movement while another uncovers its shield.
THE MEANING
You see armed force in material form: the quiver is carried with chariots and horsemen, and Kir lays its shield bare. The danger is organized and visible; weapons and movement fill the scene. The verse holds the violence in view without softening it.
THE ROOT
עֵרָה
ʿērāh
GROWS FROM
ערה
ʿ-r-h
To uncover or make bare; the root also carries the sense of pouring out or emptying.
“uncovered” in this verse is ʿērāh. This verb shares its root with a word for nakedness and with forms meaning to pour out. Kir’s shield is not merely present: its covering is removed, making its defensive force visible.
ALSO GROWS
ʿervah: Nakedness; exposure.
עֶרְוָה
The shared root links uncovering with being laid bare, sharpening the image of a shield exposed to view.
heʿerah: Poured out; emptied.
הֶעֱרָה
This form shows the root’s sense of making something open by emptying it, alongside the verse’s image of removing cover.
נָשָׂא
nāśāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted” in this verse is nāśāʾ. The Hebrew verb rendered “bare” here means to carry or lift: Elam carries its quiver. Its word family names both a burden and a leader, linking what is borne with what is raised up.
ALSO GROWS
maśśāʾ: A burden or load; also an utterance.
מַשָּׂא
The quiver is a literal load carried into the scene, making the root’s sense of bearing concrete.
nāśîʾ: A chief, prince, or leader.
נָשִׂיא
This word for a leader belongs to the same family of lifting and bearing, extending the root’s image from carried objects to a person raised to prominence.
THE PATTERN
Armed danger becomes concrete as weapons, carriers, and preparations for battle come into view.
Call this out among the nations. Set apart war. Wake the mighty ones. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up.And the wood of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the point of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and one who carries the shield walked before him.Then he said to them, But now, the one who has a purse, let him lift it, and likewise his bag. And the one who has no sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.Both passages use נָשָׂא (nasa, to carry or bear). Here Elam carries a quiver into the scene; there a figure bears griefs and carries sorrows. The same root links armed arrival with taking another’s weight upon oneself.
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