What Does Isaiah 40:25 Mean?
To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be level? Says the Set-Apart One.
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
To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.THE KEY
The Holy One exceeds every category available for comparison, so the verse overturns the search for a highest-ranked likeness.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where you reach for a comparison and exposes the limit of that reach. Every likeness you can name belongs to a bounded world; none can carry the whole nature of the Holy One. The question remains present: what can serve as a measure for the One who is set apart?
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God is merely the greatest being within a category you already understand.
THE ROOT
קָדוֹשׁ
qādôš
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh: to set apart, distinguish as sacred.
“Set-Apart One” in this verse is qādôš. The title names the One who is set apart as distinct. That makes the refusal of comparison more than a claim of rank: the Holy One is not one more instance of a familiar kind.
ALSO GROWS
qōdeš: Holiness, sacredness.
קֹדֶשׁ
The noun names the set-apart quality that makes the Holy One incomparable.
qiddēš: Set apart, consecrated.
קִדֵּשׁ
This verb shows the root in action: to make distinct or sacred.
miqdāš: Sanctuary, sacred place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary carries the same root into a place marked as set apart.
תְדַמְּיוּנִי
tədammeyuni
GROWS FROM
דמה
d-m-h: to be like, resemble, compare.
“liken me” in this verse is tədammeyuni. The verb for likening belongs to the same root family as דִּמְיוֹן (dimyon), meaning likeness or imagination. The verse exposes the mind making an image of God, then asks whether any image can serve as the measure.
ALSO GROWS
damah: To resemble, be like.
דָּמָה
This is the root verb behind the act of comparing in the verse.
dimyon: Likeness, image, imagination.
דִּמְיוֹן
This recognized derivative of the weak-final-he root shows how resemblance can become an image formed in thought.
וְאֶשְׁוֶה
ve'eshveh
GROWS FROM
שוה
sh-w-h: to be equal, level, equivalent.
The question moves from resemblance to equality: it asks whether anything can stand on the same measure as the Holy One. The root makes comparison a matter of shared level, and the verse denies that such a level exists.
ALSO GROWS
shaveh: Equal, equivalent.
שָׁוֶה
This adjective gives the direct sense of the comparison the verse asks about.
hishvah: Compared, made equal.
הִשְׁוָה
This verb shows the root as the act of setting things against one another on a shared measure.
THE PATTERN
The Holy One exceeds the images and measures people use to make reality manageable.
Who is like you among the mighty ones, O LORD? Who is like you, majestic in being set apart, awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders?For who in the skies can be set in line with the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty can be matched to the LORD?Since then we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, carved by craft and by human imagining.THE THREAD
And one called out to another, and said, Set apart, set apart, set apart is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his weight.Isaiah 6:3 repeats the same Hebrew title qādôš, from קדש (q-d-sh), meaning set apart. The threefold cry shows what Isaiah 40:25’s question means: the Holy One is incomparable because holiness marks a difference no likeness can close.
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