What Does Isaiah 38:17 Mean?
Behold, for wholeness I had great bitterness; but in love you have held my living soul back from the pit of decay, for you have thrown all my shortcomings behind your back.
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
Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.THE KEY
Here, rescue begins as a clinging love that holds the living soul, while its failures are flung behind God’s back.
THE MEANING
Bitterness is real in your present, yet it does not determine your soul’s destination. Love clings to your living soul and brings it away from the pit; what misses the mark is cast behind God’s back. The image places your failures outside the foreground while wholeness remains possible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that bitterness means wholeness is gone for good and that your failures remain the first thing God sees.
THE ROOT
חָשַׁקְתָּ
chashaqta
GROWS FROM
חשק
To cling, attach oneself, or hold close with desire.
“in love you have held” in this verse is chashaqta. The word rendered “in love” pictures attachment, not a feeling at a distance. Beside the pit, that makes the rescue an image of the living soul being held close even at the edge of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
chashaq: To cling to or set one’s love upon.
חָשַׁק
The same root describes the LORD setting his love upon the reader in Deuteronomy 7:7, making love an act of attachment.
chashuqim: Bands or fillets that bind parts together.
חֲשֻׁקִים
This related form carries the root’s sense of joining and holding, illuminating the attachment in the verse’s “in love.”
הִשְׁלַכְתָּ
hishlakhta
GROWS FROM
שלך
To throw, cast, or hurl.
“thrown” in this verse is hishlakhta. The Hebrew verb gives the image physical force: the sins are flung behind the back, out of the foreground. The same verb in Micah 7:19 pictures sins cast into the depths of the sea, making their removal decisive and spatial.
ALSO GROWS
vetashlikh: And you will cast.
וְתַשְׁלִיךְ
Micah uses this form for casting sins into the sea, echoing Isaiah’s image of sins thrown away.
hishlikh: He cast or threw.
הִשְׁלִיךְ
In Exodus 15:25, Moses casts a tree into the waters; the word keeps its concrete sense of something being thrown into a new place.
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole, complete, or sound.
The word rendered “peace” grows from the root of wholeness. The verse holds that wholeness and bitterness together: bitterness is real, but it does not cancel the soul’s movement away from the pit.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the wholeness inside “peace” audible, even while the verse names bitterness.
shillem: To make good, repay, or complete what is due.
שִׁלֵּם
This related form carries the root’s sense of bringing something to completion, deepening the contrast between bitterness and wholeness.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness becomes visible as what burdens and accuses the living person is removed from the foreground.
As far as the east is from the west, so far he puts our rebellions from us.He will turn back to us, and have compassion on us; he will tread down our crookedness, and you will throw all their shortcomings into the depths of the sea.When Jesus saw them leaning their full weight, he said to the paralyzed man, Son, your shortcomings are released.THE THREAD
The LORD did not cling to you, nor choose you, because you outnumbered any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples.“Set his love upon” uses the same Hebrew root חָשַׁק (chashaq, to cling or attach) as Isaiah’s “in love to my soul.” Together, the verses picture love as attachment that holds a person close, not a reward for being impressive.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us