What Does Isaiah 3:23 Mean?
And the mirrors, and the fine linen, and the wrapped caps, and the shawls.
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 glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.THE KEY
The mirror that reveals your image and the veil that hides it belong to one inventory of things that can be stripped away.
THE MEANING
The verse names the surfaces that shape how you appear: a mirror, fine cloth, a wrapped headpiece, a veil. What helps you compose an image and what screens you remain removable layers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that a carefully composed image can make you untouchable; even its mirror and coverings can be taken away.
THE ROOT
גִּלְיוֹנִים
gilyonim
GROWS FROM
גלה
g-l-h
Uncover, reveal, lay bare
The word translated “glasses” here means mirrors and is linked to the root גלה, “uncover, reveal.” The mirror brings an image into view while the neighboring veil screens it; both are surfaces the verse places among what can be removed.
ALSO GROWS
galah: To uncover or reveal
גָּלָה
The root names the movement from covered to visible, echoing the image a mirror brings into view.
galuy: Open, exposed
גָּלוּי
The exposed image in a mirror shares the root’s language of what is made visible.
צְנִיפוֹת
tsenifot
GROWS FROM
צנף
ts-n-p
Wrap around
“wrapped caps” in this verse is tsenifot. These “hoods” are wrapped headpieces; the same root appears in the word for the priestly turban. Everyday ornament and sacred headwear grow from the same word for wrapping, and both remain coverings that can be removed.
ALSO GROWS
tsanif: A turban or headwrap
צָנִיף
It makes the wrapped form of the verse’s headpiece explicit.
mitznefet: The priestly turban or headdress
מִצְנֶפֶת
Its shared root links this ornament to another kind of wrapped head covering.
רְדִידִים
redidim
GROWS FROM
רדד
r-d-d
Spread out, flatten, make thin
“shawls” in this verse is redidim. The veil belongs to a root of spreading or laying something thin across a surface. Its very form is a layer placed over what is underneath, making concealment a covering rather than a change to what it covers.
ALSO GROWS
radad: To spread out or flatten
רָדַד
The verb gives the veil’s root image: a surface extended over something.
redid: A shawl, veil, or covering garment
רְדִיד
The garment carries the root’s idea of a spread layer over the body.
THE PATTERN
What is covered or composed for appearance can still be brought into view.
Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will not meet you as a man.For there is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be known.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will not meet you as a man.“Uncovered” here comes from גלה, the root linked to the mirrors translated “glasses” in Isaiah 3:23. The connection carries the mirror’s revealing surface into the verse’s harsher image of coverings stripped away and shame exposed.
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