What Does Isaiah 40:13 Mean?
Who marks out the breath of the LORD, or, as his counselor, makes him know?
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
Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him?THE KEY
No one can measure or instruct the breath from which all life and understanding flow.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s breath is beyond human measure, and the wisdom moving through it needs no outside instruction. The verse meets the reader with a source of life and understanding that no human stands over to calculate or improve.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that human insight can stand outside God’s life and tell it what to do.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
rûaḥ
GROWS FROM
רוח
Breath, wind; moving air and the breath of life.
English separates spirit, wind, and breath, but Hebrew uses one word: ruach. The question places the LORD’s life-giving breath beyond human measuring or management; no human stands outside it to supply its direction.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind
רוּחַ
The same word names air in motion, so “Spirit” retains movement and force rather than becoming abstract.
ruach: Breath
רוּחַ
The same word names breath; what no one directs is the breath that gives and moves life.
תִּכֵּן
tikkēn
GROWS FROM
תכן
Measure, weigh, or assess.
“marks out” in this verse is tikkēn. “Directed” can sound like giving an order, while this root also carries the sense of measuring or weighing. The question opens onto whether anyone can take the measure of the LORD’s breath.
ALSO GROWS
tikkēn: Measured or assessed
תִּכֵּן
This is the verb in Isaiah’s question; it asks who can take the measure of the LORD’s breath.
tōkhēn: Weighs
תֹּכֵן
Proverbs 16:2 uses a form from the same root for what the LORD does to human spirits, making the direction of the measuring strikingly clear.
יוֹדִיעֶנּוּ
yôdîʿennû
GROWS FROM
ידע
Know or perceive; in a causative form, make known or inform.
“makes him know” in this verse is yôdîʿennû. The root of knowing appears here in a form meaning to make someone know or inform them. The question is not only who could advise the LORD, but who could impart knowledge to the one who already knows.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: Know or perceive
יָדַע
The basic root names knowing, the very capacity no human supplies to the LORD.
hôdîaʿ: Make known or inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form brings out the force of “taught”: who could make the LORD know?
THE PATTERN
The source that sustains creation cannot be measured or taught by the life it sustains.
Where were you when I laid the footings of the earth? Declare it, if you have discernment.All the ways of a person are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the breaths.For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has stood beside him as his counselor?THE THREAD
All the ways of a person are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the breaths.Isaiah asks who can תכן (t-k-n, measure or weigh) the LORD’s רוּחַ (ruach, breath). Proverbs uses that same measuring root for what the LORD does to human רוחות (ruachot, breaths or spirits): no person measures the LORD’s breath, while the LORD measures the inner life of people.
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