What Does Isaiah 3:20 Mean?
The headdresses, and the ornaments of the stride, and the bindings, and the little houses, and the whispers.
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
The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,THE KEY
The ornaments are not inert decoration: their Hebrew names carry the acts of beautifying, binding, and whispering.
THE MEANING
The verse names a visible arrangement of adornments worn on the body. Beneath the English list, the words carry ideas of beautifying, fastening, and whispering charms; what is worn has meanings beyond its appearance.
THE ROOT
פְּאֵרִים
peʾerim
GROWS FROM
פאר
p-ʾ-r
To adorn, beautify, or glorify.
“headdresses” in this verse is peʾerim. The word rendered “bonnets” belongs to the same root family as words for beauty and glory. The Hebrew can hold an object of adornment and the act of beautifying together.
ALSO GROWS
paʾar: Adorn or glorify.
פָּאַר
The verb makes explicit the beautifying action already present in the bonnet’s name.
tifʾeret: Beauty, ornament, or glory.
תִּפְאֶרֶת
This related noun shows how the same root can name both an adornment and the beauty it expresses.
קִשֻּׁרִים
qishshurim
GROWS FROM
קשר
q-sh-r
To bind or tie.
“bindings” in this verse is qishshurim. The headbands are named through the action of binding. English gives the object; the Hebrew also carries the fastening that holds it in place.
ALSO GROWS
qashar: Bind or tie.
קָשַׁר
The verb names the action behind the headband.
qesher: A bond or tie.
קֶשֶׁר
This noun keeps the idea of fastening visible in the object’s root family.
הַלְּחָשִׁים
halleḥashim
GROWS FROM
לחש
l-ḥ-sh
To whisper or mutter; by extension, to charm or enchant.
“whispers” in this verse is halleḥashim. The KJV renders these as “earrings,” while the Hebrew word is associated with whispering and charms. The root lets the list hold an added sense of spoken or whispered power alongside visible adornment.
ALSO GROWS
laḥash: Whisper or mutter.
לָחַשׁ
The verb supplies the word’s basic sound and action.
laḥash: A whisper, charm, or enchantment.
לַחַשׁ
This noun shows how the root’s whispering sense can extend to a charm or amulet.
THE PATTERN
Visible adornment is a layer that can be removed, while what matters beneath it remains.
In that day the Lord will remove the adornment of their jingling anklets, and their nets, and their crescents.And the children of Israel stripped their ornaments from themselves by Mount Horeb.Let your arrangement not be the outward braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of garments. But let it be the hidden person of the heart, in what cannot decay, the arrangement of a gentle and quiet breath, which is very costly in the sight of God.THE THREAD
To set for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a headdress in place of ash, the oil of leaping for mourning, the garment of praise in place of a dimmed breath; that they might be called oaks of alignment, the planting of the LORD, that he might be adorned.The “bonnets” in Isaiah 3:20 and the “beauty” given here share the Hebrew root פאר (p-ʾ-r), associated with adornment and beauty. Here the root carries adornment into an exchange: beauty is given for ashes.
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