What Does Isaiah 37:23 Mean?
Whom have you taunted and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Set-Apart One of Israel.
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
Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats one root for raising and height, making the lifted voice and high gaze one act of self-exaltation aimed at the Holy One.
THE MEANING
The verse names a posture, not merely an insult: the voice rises, the eyes look high, and both are turned toward the One set apart as Israel’s. Defiance claims elevation, yet the verse exposes the One it opposes as beyond its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that raising your voice or gaze can make you sovereign over the One you oppose.
THE ROOT
הֲרִימוֹתָ
harimota
GROWS FROM
רוּם
To rise, be high, or raise something up.
“raised your voice” in this verse is harimota. The Hebrew uses this root for raising the voice and again in “on high,” joining the actions into one repeated image. What English presents as separate gestures becomes a single claim to height, directed against the Holy One.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High, elevated.
רָם
This branch makes the verse’s raised voice part of a broader language of height.
marom: Height, a high place.
מָרוֹם
This is the word translated “on high” in the verse, repeating the same root as “exalted.”
terumah: A contribution lifted or set apart.
תְּרוּמָה
It shows the root can describe something raised up and set apart, echoing the verse’s contrast between a raised human posture and the Holy One.
THE PATTERN
Human claims to height are repeatedly exposed as answerable to the LORD, whose exaltation does not depend on them.
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Do not keep speaking from heights upon heights, and let no hardness come out of your mouth; for the LORD is a God who perceives, and by him deeds are weighed.Likewise, you younger ones, place yourselves under the elders. And all of you, tie on lowliness toward one another, for God sets himself against those who lift themselves above, and gives favor to the low ones.THE THREAD
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Isaiah 37:23 uses רוּם (rûm), meaning “to rise or be high,” for the raised voice and the height of the gaze. Isaiah 2:11 uses the same root for the haughtiness of men, revealing the raised posture here as part of the recurring claim to human height that yields to the LORD alone.
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