What Does Isaiah 3:21 Mean?
The rings, and the nostril rings.
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 rings, and nose jewels,THE KEY
English calls one ring an earring and another a nose jewel, but Hebrew uses נֶזֶם for both.
THE MEANING
Rings and nose ornaments stand among the visible things that can be taken away. Hebrew uses נֶזֶם for both a nose ring and an earring, so one source word crosses the distinction English makes by where the ring is worn.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what you wear secures your beauty or standing meets a line that places these outward signs among what can be removed.
THE ROOT
נִזְמֵי
nizme
GROWS FROM
נזם
nazam
To put a ring into the nose; by extension, to muzzle.
“jewels” in this verse is nizme. English gives nose rings and earrings separate names, but Hebrew uses נֶזֶם for both. The same word-family also reaches the act of muzzling, joining adornment and restraint at the nose.
ALSO GROWS
nazam: To put a ring into the nose; to muzzle.
נָזַם
This verb shows the physical act behind the ornament and the root’s related sense of restraint.
nezem: A ring, including a nose ring or earring.
נֶזֶם
This noun names Isaiah’s nose jewels and the earring given in Genesis 24:47.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats bodily ornaments as visible things that can be received, worn, and removed.
And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter are you? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him; and I set the nose-ring upon her nose, and the bracelets upon her hands.In that day the Lord will remove the adornment of their jingling anklets, and their nets, and their crescents.Let your arrangement not be the outward braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of garments.THE THREAD
And I asked her, and said, Whose daughter are you? And she said, The daughter of Bethuel, son of Nahor, whom Milcah bore to him; and I set the nose-ring upon her nose, and the bracelets upon her hands.The “earring” here is the same Hebrew noun, נֶזֶם (nezem), as Isaiah’s “nose jewels.” The same word names the ring across different places on the body.
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