What Does Isaiah 38:20 Mean?
The LORD will deliver me, and therefore we will play my songs on the strings all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.
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 LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes “sing,” “songs,” and “stringed instruments” grow from one musical root: deliverance opens into a life that itself becomes music.
THE MEANING
The LORD is deliverance for you, and that deliverance opens into a shared song that reaches through every day of life. The verse holds this ongoing music in the house of the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that deliverance is only a moment of escape with no reach into the rest of life: here, it becomes the melody of all one’s days.
THE ROOT
לְהוֹשִׁיעֵנִי
lehoshi'eni
GROWS FROM
יָשַׁע
yasha
To deliver, bringing someone out of constriction into spaciousness.
“deliver” in this verse is lehoshi'eni. The verb translated “save” carries a movement out of narrowness into room to live. Here the LORD is not merely the one who interrupts danger; deliverance opens into the speaker’s continuing life.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: Deliverance; rescue that brings out into spaciousness.
יְשׁוּעָה
Isaiah 12:2 uses this related noun for deliverance and joins it to strength and song.
Yeshua: Deliverance; the name carries the nature of bringing out into spaciousness.
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name shares this root’s movement from constriction toward room to live.
נְנַגֵּן
nenaggen neginotai
GROWS FROM
נָגַן
nagan
To play music, especially on stringed instruments.
“songs on the strings” in this verse is nenaggen neginotai. The Hebrew repeats one musical root where English gives “sing,” “songs,” and “stringed instruments.” The wording gathers melody, playing, and instrument into one action: the delivered life is a life making music.
ALSO GROWS
menaggen: A musician or player of an instrument.
מְנַגֵּן
The player belongs to the same word family as the music made throughout the verse.
neginot: Instrumental music or melodies.
נְגִינוֹת
This branch names the melodies that the verse says continue through every day of life.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance opens into song that carries through life and gives voice to wholeness.
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.The LORD is my strength and song, and becomes my deliverance.In the middle of the night Paul and Silas prayed and sang praise to God, and the prisoners listened to them.THE THREAD
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.Isaiah 38:20 uses הוֹשִׁיעֵנִי (hoshi’eni, deliver me) from יָשַׁע (yasha, deliver and bring into spaciousness); Isaiah 12:2 names the related deliverance as יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah, deliverance). There, strength, song, and deliverance stand together, unfolding why deliverance in Isaiah 38 becomes music through all the speaker’s days.
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