What Does Isaiah 27:9 Mean?
By this, therefore, the crookedness of Jacob will be covered. And this is the whole fruit of removing his falling short. When he sets all the altar stones like shattered chalk, the poles and sun-pillars will not rise.
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
By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.THE KEY
The verse makes purging visible as demolition: the altar stones are broken apart, and the images lose their standing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of crookedness being purged with visible fruit: the altar stones are pulverized, and the groves and images no longer stand. Cleansing reaches what props up the missing and removes its place to stand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Cleansing is not only an invisible change while the structures that sustain the missing remain untouched.
THE ROOT
יְכֻפַּר
yekhuppar
GROWS FROM
כפר
כפר (kāphar) means to cover or make a covering.
“covered” in this verse is yekhuppar. The verb translated “purged” comes from כפר, whose seed carries the sense of covering. The verse sets that covering beside a concrete result: the altar stones are broken apart, and its images cannot stand.
ALSO GROWS
kōpher: A covering or ransom.
כֹּפֶר
The same כפר consonants connect the verse’s purging to the image of a covering.
kappōreth: The cover of the ark.
כַּפֹּרֶת
This word makes the covering sense tangible, while Isaiah names the removal that accompanies it.
חַטָּאתוֹ
ḥaṭṭā’tô
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (ḥāṭā’) means to miss or go wrong; it also names sin and guilt.
“falling short” in this verse is ḥaṭṭā’tô. The word translated “sin” belongs to a family that carries the sense of missing. Isaiah names the fruit of removing that missing as the breaking apart of the altar stones and the loss of the images’ standing.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭā’: To miss, go wrong, or sin.
חָטָא
The verb shares the root consonants and makes the act of missing visible in the word-family.
ḥēt: Sin, a failure or miss.
חֵטְא
This noun carries the same root into the condition the verse says is taken away.
הָסִר
hāsîr
GROWS FROM
סור
סור (sûr) means to turn aside or depart.
“removing” in this verse is hāsîr. The phrase “to take away” comes from a root of turning aside and departing. The verse then shows departure in physical form: the altar stones are shattered, and the images no longer stand.
ALSO GROWS
sûr: To turn aside or depart.
סוּר
These are the root’s basic movements, echoed by the removal named in the verse.
mēsîr: One who removes, or a form meaning removing.
מֵסִיר
It shares the סור consonants and makes explicit the act of causing something to depart.
THE PATTERN
When what sustains false worship is removed, its images lose their standing.
And he brought out the Asherah pole from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the streambed of Kidron, and burned it at the streambed of Kidron, and beat it to dust, and threw its dust over the graves of the children of the people.You will also make unclean the silver overlay of your hewn images, and the gilding of your poured images of gold. You will winnow them as a cloth of sickness. You will say to it, "Go out."Many of those who had practiced the meddling arts also brought their scrolls together and burned them before all people; and they counted the price, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.THE THREAD
For on that day the priest makes a covering for you, to cleanse you, so that you may be clean from all your shortcomings before the LORD.Leviticus uses כִּפֶּר (kipper, made covering or atonement), from כפר (kāphar, cover), and joins it to cleansing. Isaiah uses the same root beside the removal of sin and the shattered altar, giving the covering a visible fruit.
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