What Does Isaiah 38:4 Mean?
Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,
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
Then came the word of the LORD to Isaiah, saying,THE KEY
The word of the LORD arrives as a matter entering the scene, not merely an idea waiting to be heard.
THE MEANING
You meet the word at the threshold of its utterance: it comes to Isaiah, and the verse ends before the saying is disclosed. The Hebrew word davar can mean both “word” and “matter,” giving this arrival the weight of something spoken and substantial.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
dĕvar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; as a noun, a word or matter.
English can make “word” sound like a message alone, but Hebrew davar also names a matter or thing, joining what is spoken to what is being addressed. The verse presents the word as something that arrives, then opens into speech.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
This branch lets the LORD’s word carry the sense of a matter entering the scene, not only information being conveyed.
dibbēr: To speak.
דִּבֶּר
This verbal form makes audible the action held within the noun: the word arrives to be spoken.
יְשַׁעְיָהוּ
Yəšaʿyāhū
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-š-ʿ
Deliverance; in the name, YHWH delivers.
Isaiah’s name carries the root of deliverance alongside the divine name, echoing the character of the one whose word arrives. The verse leaves the content of that word just beyond view.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: Deliver, rescue, bring out.
יָשַׁע
The verb behind the name carries deliverance as an action, echoing the name’s declaration that YHWH delivers.
yēšaʿ: Deliverance or rescue.
יֵשַׁע
This noun makes the deliverance carried in Isaiah’s name visible as a state or outcome.
THE PATTERN
The word of God reaches people as a living utterance that acts within the situation it enters.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Isaiah 38:4 holds the word at its arrival, just before its content is spoken; Isaiah 55:11 shows the same Hebrew root, דבר (d-b-r), in a word that goes out and accomplishes its purpose. The arrival already carries the force of something that will unfold.
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