What Does Isaiah 26:12 Mean?
LORD, you will set wholeness for us; for you also have worked all our works for us.
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
LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.THE KEY
The wholeness set in place for you and the work called yours share a source: God is the one acting for you.
THE MEANING
The LORD establishes wholeness for you now. The work you recognize as yours is also something God has wrought for you, so your life holds both your labor and God’s activity within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must create wholeness yourself and claim sole authorship of what you accomplish.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; to make good or restore.
The root carries wholeness and completeness, while its repayment branch gives wholeness the shade of what is made good. Here, the LORD sets that whole-making state in place for you.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
This branch reveals the fullness carried in the wholeness appointed for you.
shillem: To repay, make good, or restore what is due.
שִׁלֵּם
Its sense of making good gives shalom a depth beyond quiet: wholeness includes what has been restored.
פָּעַלְתָּ
paalta
GROWS FROM
פעל
p-ʿ-l
To do, work, or act.
The verb names God as the one who has acted and worked. Beside “all our works,” it places God’s doing within the deeds we call ours.
ALSO GROWS
po'el: One who works; a worker.
פֹּעֵל
This branch makes the root’s active sense visible: the verse names God as the worker.
pe'ullah: Work, labor, or deed.
פְּעֻלָּה
This noun from the same root links God’s action to the work named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Human work takes shape within God’s work, which establishes and sustains it.
Let the sweetness of the LORD our God be upon us, and set firm upon us the work of our hands; the work of our hands, set it firm.For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do, for the sake of his good pleasure.THE THREAD
But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.Isaiah 53:5 uses the same word, שָׁלוֹם (shalom), for the wholeness Isaiah 26:12 says the LORD establishes. Its place beside chastisement and healing reveals that this wholeness reaches into what is wounded and makes it whole.
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