What Does Isaiah 26:14 Mean?
They are dead and will not live. The slackened ones will not rise. Therefore you have visited them and wiped them out, and you have caused all their memory to lose the way.
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 are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for the remembrance erased here shares its root with the word for invoking God’s name in the verse before it: whose name is spoken, and whose is wiped away.
THE MEANING
The verse names an ending with no return in view: those who are dead do not live or rise, and their remembrance perishes. The loss reaches beyond their bodies to their legacy; their dominion does not keep living through a remembered name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that dominion guarantees remembrance. The verse says a ruler’s memory can perish along with the ruler.
THE ROOT
זֵכֶר
zēker
GROWS FROM
זכר
Remember, call to mind, or mention.
“memory” in this verse is zēker. English separates remembering from mentioning, but both grow from זכר (z-k-r). Isaiah 26:13 uses this root for making mention of God’s name; here, the remembrance of the other rulers perishes.
ALSO GROWS
zākar: To remember, recall, or mention.
זָכַר
The verb behind “make mention” in Isaiah 26:13 shares this root with the remembrance that perishes here.
zikkārôn: A memorial or remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch shows how the same root can describe what is kept in memory, as well as what is erased from it.
וַתְּאַבֵּד
vattəʾabbēd
GROWS FROM
אבד
Perish or be lost; in a causative form, cause to perish or be lost.
“to lose the way” in this verse is vattəʾabbēd. The verse uses a causative form: their remembrance is made to perish. The root’s sense of being lost gives the erasure a stark finality.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: To perish or become lost.
אָבַד
This is the root verb beneath the verse’s statement that their remembrance perishes.
ʾăbēdāh: A lost thing or loss.
אֲבֵדָה
This noun carries the root’s sense of what has gone missing, illuminating the verse’s picture of remembrance lost.
THE PATTERN
God’s judgment ends rival dominion by removing its claim to endure.
And the LORD said to Moses, Write this as a memorial in a scroll, and set it into the ears of Joshua. For I will surely wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens.You rebuke the nations; you make the wicked lose the way; you wipe out their name for the ages and ages.The last enemy to be made idle is death.THE THREAD
LORD our God, other masters and lords beside you have held sway over us; but by you alone we will call out your name.“Make mention” and “memory” carry the same Hebrew root, זכר (z-k-r), meaning remember or mention. The two verses contrast the name spoken to God with the remembrance of rival rulers that is erased.
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