What Does Isaiah 29:5 Mean?
And the crowd of your strangers will be like fine dust, and the crowd of the violent like chaff passing by, and in a blink, all at once.
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
Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.THE KEY
The verse turns a noisy multitude into loose debris: the crowd’s menace has no guarantee of permanence.
THE MEANING
Whatever confronts you as an overwhelming multitude is pictured as fine dust and chaff that cannot hold together; its passing is sudden. The verse measures this force by how it ends, not by how immense or terrifying it looks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a force becomes permanent or invincible because it is numerous and frightening.
THE ROOT
הָמוֹן
hāmôn
GROWS FROM
המה
To roar, murmur, or surge noisily.
English “multitude” sounds like a count, but הָמוֹן also carries the sense of tumult and roar. The verse moves that noisy mass into fine dust and chaff: what seems weighty because it is loud and numerous proves easy to scatter.
ALSO GROWS
hāmāh: To roar, murmur, or make a tumultuous sound.
הָמָה
This verb reveals the noise inside the crowd: its apparent force is also a roar that can fade.
hāmôn: A tumult, roaring crowd, or multitude.
הָמוֹן
The same word can name both the crowd and its uproar, joining its size to the noise it makes.
עָרִיצִים
ʿārîṣîm
GROWS FROM
ערץ
To terrify or inspire dread.
“the violent” in this verse is ʿārîṣîm. The “terrible ones” are the dread-inspiring oppressors; their identity is bound to the fear they provoke. Yet the verse gives them the same end as the crowd: they pass like chaff.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāraṣ: To terrify or make someone tremble.
עָרַץ
The verb names the fear-producing force behind the “terrible ones.”
ʿārîṣ: A ruthless or tyrannical person; one who inspires dread.
עָרִיץ
The plural in the verse names those whose menace seems formidable, then shows that menace scattering.
THE PATTERN
A force does not become lasting simply because it gathers in great numbers; what is like chaff can be scattered or removed.
The nations shall crash like the roar of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be pursued like chaff of the mountains before the breath, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the breath blows away.Whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.THE THREAD
Woe to the roaring of many peoples, who roar like the roar of seas; and to the crashing of nations, who crash like the crashing of mighty waters!Isaiah 17:12 uses הֲמוֹן (hāmôn, tumult or multitude) for the roaring crowd, the same root-family as “multitude” here. That verse lets you hear the mass as noise; Isaiah 29:5 shows the noisy mass reduced to dust and chaff.
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