What Does Isaiah 40:4 Mean?
Every valley is lifted, and every mountain and hill is brought low; the crooked is made straight, and the rough places become a plain.
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
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:THE KEY
All the terrain becomes road: low places rise, heights fall, and crooked ground is leveled into a way through.
THE MEANING
The way before you is being made passable through a rearrangement of the terrain: valleys rise, heights descend, and crooked paths become level. Barriers are being cleared from every direction, even where the ground seems fundamentally bent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an obstructed way can only be crossed by your own climbing; here the obstacles themselves are lifted, lowered, and leveled.
THE ROOT
עָקֹב
ʿaqov
GROWS FROM
עקב
ʿ-q-b
To take by the heel; by extension, to supplant or circumvent.
The Hebrew word for “crooked” belongs to a family that also carries the image of taking someone by the heel and overtaking by circumvention. Here that crookedness becomes a level way: what bends or catches the traveler gives way to an unobstructed course.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaqev: Heel
עָקֵב
The literal heel anchors the root’s image of catching or following from behind.
ʿaqav: Take by the heel; supplant or circumvent
עָקַב
This verb gives “crooked” a sense of evasion or overreaching alongside physical unevenness.
Yaʿaqov: Jacob; a name associated with the heel
יַעֲקֹב
The name preserves the same heel image, showing how the root’s physical picture can extend into the idea of supplanting.
מִישׁוֹר
mishor
GROWS FROM
ישר
y-sh-r
To be straight, level, or right.
“made straight” in this verse is mishor. מִישׁוֹר (mishor) can name level ground or a plain, and it comes from the same root as words for being straight or upright. The straightened path is therefore both passable ground and a line without distortion.
ALSO GROWS
yashar: Straight, right, or upright
יָשָׁר
This adjective shares the root behind the level way, joining physical straightness with uprightness.
yosher: Straightness or uprightness
יֹשֶׁר
This noun carries the root into a quality of being without crookedness.
יִנָּשֵׂא
yinnase
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-s-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted” in this verse is yinnase. The valley “shall be exalted” is יִנָּשֵׂא (yinnase), a form of נשא (nasa), “to lift” or “carry.” The same root appears in נָשִׂיא (nasi), a leader or prince, and מַשָּׂא (massa), a load borne; the valley rises within the same movement that lowers the heights.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, or bear
נָשָׂא
This is the root verb behind the valley being lifted.
nasi: Leader or prince
נָשִׂיא
The word shares the lifting root, carrying the sense of one raised to a position.
massa: Load or burden
מַשָּׂא
A burden is something carried, revealing the root’s joined sense of lifting and bearing.
THE PATTERN
A way becomes passable when the forces that block movement are transformed into a level course.
He leads them along the straight way, so that they go to a city to settle in.I will bring the blind on a way they have not known, and set them walking along paths they have not known. I will make darkness into light before them, and the crooked into straight. These things I will do for them, and I will not let go of them.Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth.THE THREAD
He leads them along the straight way, so that they go to a city to settle in.Psalm 107:7 calls the route בְּדֶרֶךְ יְשָׁרָה (b’derekh yesharah), “by a straight or right way,” from ישר (yashar), the root behind Isaiah’s מִישׁוֹר (mishor), “level ground.” It shows the straightened path as a way someone can actually be led along.
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