What Does Isaiah 26:4 Mean?
Lean your full weight upon the LORD for ages upon ages; for in the LORD, the LORD, is the rock of ages.
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
Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “everlasting strength” is “Rock of ages”: your trust rests on a foundation that endures.
THE MEANING
Your trust has a ground that outlasts every age: the LORD is the Rock of ages. The verse locates lasting security in the LORD’s enduring nature.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that security lasts only as long as its support keeps changing gives way to this: the LORD is rock through the ages.
THE ROOT
צוּר
tsur
GROWS FROM
צוּר
ts-r
Rock or crag: solid ground that can serve as a refuge.
“the rock of ages” in this verse is tsur. The Hebrew word rendered “strength” is צוּר (tsur, rock). The verse gives trust a solid place to rest: the LORD is the Rock across the ages.
ALSO GROWS
tsuri: my rock
צוּרִי
Psalm 18:2 uses this same rock word as a personal confession: “The LORD is my rock.”
tsurenu: our Rock
צוּרֵנוּ
Deuteronomy 32:31 uses the same word with “our,” showing the rock as shared ground for trust.
בִּטְחוּ
bitḥu
GROWS FROM
בטח
To feel secure, rely, or be confident.
“Lean your full weight upon” in this verse is bitḥu. This is trust as settled reliance, with security already inside the word’s family. The verse joins that reliance to the LORD as Rock: the ground of trust is not a passing feeling.
ALSO GROWS
mivtaḥ: security, refuge, or confidence
מִבְטָח
This branch names the security toward which trust leans; Isaiah names the LORD as its enduring ground.
beṭaḥ: securely, safely
בֶּטַח
The related form describes the settled quality of reliance that the verse places in the LORD.
עֹלָמִים
olamim
GROWS FROM
עלם
An age or a long, indefinite span of time.
The Hebrew phrase is “Rock of ages”: the ages belong to the rock, giving the image a duration that reaches across them. “Everlasting strength” carries this concrete image of lasting support.
ALSO GROWS
olam: an age, long duration, or world, depending on context
עוֹלָם
The singular form makes clear that olamim here refers to ages of time.
le'olam: for ever, perpetually
לְעוֹלָם
This related form shows how the same word family can express enduring time.
THE PATTERN
Trust endures because the LORD is named as rock, the stable ground beneath changing ages.
He is the Rock; whole is his work, for all his ways are judgment. A God of steadiness, without crookedness, aligned and straight is he.The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I shelter; my shield, and the horn of my deliverance, and my high place.And all drank the same breath-given drink, for they drank from the breath-given rock that followed them, and that rock was the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Lean your full weight upon him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before him. God is our shelter. Selah.The same Hebrew root, בטח (batach, trust with security and confidence), appears in this call to trust at all times. Isaiah names the ground of that security as the Rock of ages; the psalm shows trust alongside pouring out the heart.
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