What Does Isaiah 27:13 Mean?
And in that day the great ram's horn will be blown, and those losing the way in the land of Assyria will come, and the driven ones in the land of Egypt, and they will bow down to the LORD on the set-apart mountain in Jerusalem.
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
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.THE KEY
The trumpet reaches both the nearly lost and the cast out, calling them toward the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name.
THE MEANING
When you are close to losing your way or feel pushed outside belonging, the summons still reaches you. The scattered come into one presence, where bowing before the LORD and wholeness meet.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that being nearly lost or cast out puts you beyond the reach of the call.
THE ROOT
הַנִּדָּחִים
hanniddāḥîm
GROWS FROM
נדח
n-d-ḥ
to push or drive away
“driven ones” in this verse is hanniddāḥîm. The word names people by the force that has driven them away, yet these are the very people the summons reaches. The root holds their expulsion and their being gathered within the same movement.
ALSO GROWS
niddāḥ: An outcast or banished person.
נִדָּח
This singular form makes clear that each person driven away is within the reach of the call.
nidhê: People who have been driven away.
נִדְחֵי
Isaiah 11:12 uses this form for Israel’s outcasts, who are gathered from the earth’s edges.
yaddîḥû: They lead or draw others away.
יַדִּיחוּ
The same root can describe the force that pushes people out, making the verse’s gathering a reversal of that scattering.
הָאֹבְדִים
hā’ovdîm
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
to perish, be lost
“losing the way” in this verse is hā’ovdîm. The Hebrew describes “the perishing ones,” holding the threat of destruction together with being lost. The trumpet reaches them while they are still named by that condition.
ALSO GROWS
’oved: A person who is perishing or lost.
אֹבֵד
It shows that the summons reaches those already described as lost, not only those who feel secure.
’avedah: Something that has been lost.
אֲבֵדָה
The root links a person perishing with what has gone missing; both can be found and gathered.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
to be whole, complete
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The destination carries the root of wholeness. Those described as perishing and driven away are called toward a place whose name holds completeness and belonging.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Completeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
It reveals the quality carried by the destination of the gathering.
shalem: Complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
The root holds the movement from scattered and lost toward restored completeness.
THE PATTERN
The divine summons gathers the scattered from every edge into one presence.
And he will lift a banner for the nations, and gather in the driven ones of Israel, and gather the scattered of Judah from the four wings of the earth.He gathers them in from the lands, from the east and the west, from the north and the south.And he sends his messengers with a great trumpet, and they gather his picked-out ones from the four winds, from the edges of the heavens to their edges.THE THREAD
And he will lift a banner for the nations, and gather in the driven ones of Israel, and gather the scattered of Judah from the four wings of the earth.Isaiah 11:12 calls them נִדְחֵי (nidhê), “the driven-away ones,” from the same root נדח (n-d-ḥ) as Isaiah 27:13’s “outcasts.” The shared root shows that those named by their expulsion are precisely the ones gathered from the edges.
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