What Does Isaiah 27:3 Mean?
I, the LORD, keep it. In every still moment I give it drink. Lest anyone visit it in harm, I guard it night and day.
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
I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.THE KEY
The LORD keeps the vineyard through both protection and constant nourishment.
THE MEANING
You are a tended vineyard: the LORD keeps watch over you and waters you at every moment. His care guards what may harm you and supplies what sustains you, through night and day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being kept means only being shielded from harm: here, keeping also means being watered continually.
THE ROOT
נֹצְרָהּ
notserah
GROWS FROM
נצר
Guard, watch over, preserve.
“keep” in this verse is notserah. The verse uses נצר (natsar, guard or preserve) twice, enclosing the watering in an uninterrupted act of care. Its consonants also appear in נֵצֶר (netser, shoot or branch), a sound echo that places living growth beside the act of guarding.
ALSO GROWS
notserim: Watchers or keepers.
נֹצְרִים
Jeremiah 31:6 uses this form for watchmen; it shows the same root’s attentive guarding at work.
netser: Shoot or branch.
נֵצֶר
This consonant echo fits the vineyard image: the living growth being preserved sits beside the language of keeping.
אַשְׁקֶנָּה
ashqennah
GROWS FROM
שקה
Give drink; water or irrigate.
“give it drink” in this verse is ashqennah. The verb casts care as giving drink: the vineyard receives what sustains it. Since the LORD waters it “every moment,” nourishment is part of his unbroken keeping.
ALSO GROWS
yashqeh: Waters or gives drink.
יַשְׁקֶה
Genesis 2:6 uses this root for watering the whole face of the ground, joining water with the sustaining of living creation.
mashqeh: Drink; a cupbearer, one who gives drink.
מַשְׁקֶה
Genesis 40:1 uses this word for Pharaoh’s cupbearer, carrying the root’s giving of drink into a person’s role.
THE PATTERN
Care that sustains life stays attentive while supplying what growth needs.
A land the LORD your God searches. The eyes of the LORD your God are upon it always, from the head of the year to its end.Look, the watcher of Israel neither nods nor sleeps.I am the true vine, and my Father is the one who works the soil.THE THREAD
You will keep in wholeness upon wholeness the one whose shaped mind rests upon you, for in you he leans his full weight.Isaiah 26:3 uses נצר (natsar, guard or preserve) for the LORD keeping the mind stayed on him. The same root links the vineyard’s keeping with the keeping of inward steadiness.
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