What Does Isaiah 24:14 Mean?
They lift up their voice, they ring out for the height of the LORD, they cry out from the sea.
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
They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea.THE KEY
The Hebrew carries the voices upward from the sea as the LORD is named through the language of height.
THE MEANING
The sea is no mute margin: voices rise there in song for the LORD’s majesty. Your distance from settled ground does not put your voice beyond the reach of praise; the verse hears singing from the sea itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that praise can come only from safe, settled ground.
THE ROOT
יִשְׂאוּ
yisʾu
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, bear.
The verb behind lift up can also mean carry or bear: the voice is not merely made louder but borne aloft. The song comes from the sea, and the Hebrew makes its voices something carried into the open.
ALSO GROWS
nōśēʾ: One who carries or bears.
נֹשֵׂא
This participle makes the carrying sense audible: the voices in the verse are borne up in song.
maśśāʾ: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
The shared root joins lifting with bearing; a raised voice is also something carried.
יָרֹנּוּ
yārōnnū
GROWS FROM
רנן
Ring out, shout, or sing aloud.
This root describes sound breaking outward, not silent or private praise. The voices from the sea ring out for the LORD’s majesty.
ALSO GROWS
merannēn: One singing or shouting aloud.
מְרַנֵּן
The active form keeps the verse’s praise audible and outward-moving.
renānîm: Joyful shouts or songs.
רְנָנִים
This noun shows how the ringing cry of the verse becomes a shared song.
גָּאוֹן
gāʾôn
GROWS FROM
גאה
Rise, be high, or be exalted.
The word translated majesty belongs to the language of rising and height. Beside the lifted voices, it gives the verse an upward movement: the song rises toward the One named as exalted.
ALSO GROWS
gāʾāh: To rise, be high, or be exalted.
גָּאָה
This verb exposes the height within the verse’s word for majesty.
gēʾeh: High, proud, or exalted.
גֵּאֶה
This related form carries the same language of height and helps illuminate the LORD’s majesty.
THE PATTERN
Praise for the LORD gathers voices from the earth’s farthest reaches, including the sea.
Sing to the LORD a new song, and his praise from the edge of the earth, you who go down to the sea and all that fills it, the coastlands and those who settle in them.Shout to the LORD, all the earth. Burst open, ring out, and make music.And every created thing in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, and all that is in them, I hear them saying, Blessing, and honor, and weight, and power, be to the one who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb, into the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, the enclosures where Kedar settles. Let those who settle in the rock sing, let them shout from the head of the mountains.Isaiah 42:11 repeats the roots נשא, lift or carry, and רנן, sing aloud. What this verse locates at sea rises there from wilderness and mountain too; the same song travels across distant places.
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