What Does Isaiah 36:15 Mean?
Nor let Hezekiah make you lean your full weight upon the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely snatch us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
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
Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.THE KEY
One English “deliver” holds two opposite movements here: being snatched free and being handed over.
THE MEANING
A voice can make trust sound foolish by treating surrender as inevitable. Here the speaker repeats Hezekiah’s confidence in the LORD while trying to discredit it. The verse shows how a threatened future can be presented as though it were already settled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A threat’s certainty does not prove that the threatened outcome is settled; the verse presents it as a claim competing with the promise of rescue.
THE ROOT
הַצֵּל יַצִּילֵנוּ
hatsel yatsilenu
GROWS FROM
נצל
natsal
To snatch away, rescue, or deliver.
“surely snatch us” in this verse is hatsel yatsilenu. The paired forms intensify the claim: “surely rescue us.” The root pictures being pulled clear of danger, a motion distinct from the city being handed over later in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
nitsal: He escaped or was delivered.
נִצַּל
This form keeps the root’s image of being pulled out of danger.
matsil: One who rescues or delivers.
מַצִּיל
The same root can name the rescuer as well as the act of rescue.
תִּנָּתֵן
tinnaten
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, or place.
“given into the hand” in this verse is tinnaten. The second “deliver” is literally “be given,” followed by “into the hand” of the king. Hebrew sets rescue from danger beside transfer into another’s power; the English repetition lets those opposite movements sound alike.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root shows the basic movement of something being given.
natun: Given or placed.
נָתוּן
This form makes the handover in the verse concrete: the city is pictured as placed into another’s hand.
יַבְטַח
yivtach
GROWS FROM
בטח
batach
To trust or feel secure.
“make you lean your full weight upon” in this verse is yivtach. The speaker frames trust as something Hezekiah might induce, making reliance sound like manipulation. But batach carries the sense of security itself, which is precisely what the threat tries to unsettle.
ALSO GROWS
batuach: Secure or confident.
בָּטוּחַ
This form names the settled feeling that the speaker is trying to undermine.
mivtach: Security or refuge.
מִבְטָח
The shared root links trust with a place or condition of safety.
THE PATTERN
A threat can make surrender sound settled, while trust holds the threatened outcome as a claim rather than a fact.
On the day I tremble, I lean my weight upon you.Though a camp should pitch against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I lean my full weight.So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear. What will a human do to me?THE THREAD
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.Isaiah’s יַצִּילֵנוּ (yatsilenu, “he will rescue us”) and the Psalm’s יַצִּילֵם (yatsilem, “he delivers them”) share נצל (natsal, “rescue”). The shared root opens “deliver us” onto the image of being pulled out of trouble.
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