What Does Isaiah 23:5 Mean?
As at the hearing of Egypt, so they shall writhe at the hearing of Tyre.
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
As at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.THE KEY
The repeated report is more than information: the Hebrew says hearing it makes people writhe.
THE MEANING
The report concerning Egypt and the report of Tyre become a single shock to those who hear them. The verse shows how news can move through you as bodily distress before it becomes an explanation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a report is only information, untouched by the body: hearing can bring anguish into the body.
THE ROOT
יָחִילוּ
yāḥîlû
GROWS FROM
חול
ḥ-w-l (ḥûl): to writhe, whirl, tremble, or travail.
The word presents distress as movement in the body: the hearers writhe under what they hear. The same root reaches into labor and dance, gathering different forms of bodily motion under one seed.
ALSO GROWS
məḥōl: Dance or circle dance.
מְחוֹל
A dance and a tremor are different experiences of motion, but this branch shares the root’s image of a body in motion.
ḥōlēl: To writhe, whirl, or bring forth.
חוֹלֵל
This verbal branch makes the root’s bodily movement explicit, linking anguish with the labor of bringing forth.
לְשֵׁמַע
ləšēmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ (shamaʿ): to hear or listen; the word-family gathers what is heard.
Both reports use the שמע family: one concerning Egypt, one concerning Tyre. The repetition makes hearing the bridge by which distant upheaval reaches the people who receive the news.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
The verb names the act beneath both reports: someone hears, and what is heard has consequences.
shĕmûʿāh: Report, news, or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows how the root for hearing also names the news carried to a hearer.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
m-ṣ-r (matsar): to press in or constrain; מֵצַר names a strait or narrow place.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitsrayim. Mitzrayim carries the consonants of מֵצַר (mēṣar, a strait or constriction), and its -ayim ending presents the name in a dual form. The report from this place of narrowing is heard alongside Tyre’s, and the hearers themselves are made to writhe.
ALSO GROWS
mēṣar: A strait, narrow place, or distress.
מֵצַר
This branch gives the constriction carried in the name a concrete form: a place with little room.
mĕṣārîm: Straits or narrow places.
מְצָרִים
The plural form carries the same m-ṣ-r consonants and extends the image of constriction.
THE PATTERN
What is heard carries distant events into the hearers’ bodies and responses.
And when he came, behold, Eli sat upon a seat beside the road, watching, for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city and told it, all the city cried out.And it shall be, when they say to you, Why do you groan? Then you shall answer, For what is heard, for it comes. And every heart shall melt, and all hands shall drop, and every breath shall grow dim, and all knees shall go slack like waters. Behold, it comes, and it comes to pass, declares the Lord GOD.Then the word about these things came to the ears of the assembly that was in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.THE THREAD
As a woman with child who draws near to bring forth writhes and cries out in her cords, so we have been before your face, LORD.The Hebrew תָּחִיל (tāḥîl, she writhes or is in labor) belongs to the same חול (ḥûl, writhe or travail) root family as יָחִילוּ here. Isaiah uses that bodily movement for labor pangs there, revealing the physical force inside the anguish at Tyre’s report.
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