What Does Isaiah 3:26 Mean?
And her gates shall bow low and mourn, and she, emptied, shall sit upon the ground.
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
And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the gates “openings,” and even these thresholds grieve as the city sits desolate on the ground.
THE MEANING
The city’s grief is public: its openings mourn, and the city itself sits low on the ground. Desolation reaches both the thresholds and the place where the city dwells.
THE ROOT
פְּתָחֶיהָ
pətāḥêhā
GROWS FROM
פתח
To open, or make an opening.
The word translated “gates” literally points to openings. The threshold through which the city is entered becomes a place where its grief is heard.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: An opening or entrance.
פֶּתַח
It makes the gates’ role as the city’s openings visible in the verse.
pātaḥ: To open.
פָּתַח
The root links the gate to the act of opening, giving the grieving threshold a sense of what is now lost.
maphtēaḥ: A key.
מַפְתֵּחַ
This related word carries the idea of opening, echoing the access held at a city’s gates.
אָבְלוּ
ʾāḇəlû
GROWS FROM
אבל
To mourn or be in mourning.
“mourn” in this verse is ʾāḇəlû. The verse gives mourning to the gates themselves, making grief part of the city’s visible structure. The same root names mourning and the mourner, so grief is presented as a state that can inhabit the place.
ALSO GROWS
ʾēvel: Mourning or grief.
אֵבֶל
This noun names the grief embodied by the gates.
ʾāvēl: A mourner; one in mourning.
אָבֵל
This branch makes the verse’s personification concrete: the gates act as mourners.
תֵּשֵׁב
tēšēḇ
GROWS FROM
ישב
To sit, dwell, or remain.
The Hebrew root holds “sit” and “dwell” together. The city that is a place of habitation is now pictured seated on the ground, its dwelling made low.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaḇ: To sit, dwell, or remain.
יָשַׁב
It holds together the city’s posture and its condition as a place people inhabit.
mōšāḇ: A dwelling place or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
It echoes the city as a place of dwelling, now sitting desolate on the ground.
THE PATTERN
When a city is brought low, grief becomes visible in its thresholds and streets, not only in its inhabitants.
Judah mourns, and her gates droop; they have gone dark to the earth, and the cry of Jerusalem has risen.The roads of Zion mourn, for none come to the appointed gatherings. All her gates stand emptied. Her priests groan, her virgins ache, and she tastes bitter.And they throw dust on their heads, and cry out, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships on the sea grew rich by her costliness! For in one hour she has been emptied.THE THREAD
Judah mourns, and her gates droop; they have gone dark to the earth, and the cry of Jerusalem has risen.Isaiah uses the root אבל (ʾ-b-l, “mourn”) for its gates; Jeremiah uses the same root for Judah’s mourning, then shows its gates brought low. The shared root carries the grief from the city’s inhabitants to its thresholds.
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