What Does Isaiah 41:16 Mean?
You will winnow them, and breath will carry them away, and the storm will scatter them. You will rejoice in the LORD, and you will boast in the Set-Apart One of Israel.
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
Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.THE KEY
The “wind” scattering them is רוּחַ (ruach, breath), the same Hebrew word used for breath, so the verse holds scattering and life’s unseen movement in one image.
THE MEANING
What stands against you is pictured as chaff: it is fanned out, carried away, and scattered. Your joy and your boast have their center in the LORD, the Set-Apart One of Israel.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what opposes you is too solid to move gives way: the verse pictures it as chaff before the wind, while your rejoicing takes its center in the LORD.
THE ROOT
תִּזְרֵם
tizrem
GROWS FROM
ז־ר־ה
z-r-h
to scatter, disperse, or winnow
“winnow” in this verse is tizrem. English “fan” can sound like simply moving air, while the verb carries the work of scattering and separating seed. Here the scattering itself is a sifting: what is driven off cannot stay among you.
ALSO GROWS
mizreh: winnowing fan or fork
מִזְרֶה
This tool is named from the same winnowing action, showing the physical instrument behind the verse’s image.
zoreh: one who winnows
זֹרֶה
This form names the person doing the same separating work that the verse gives to “you.”
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
breath, blowing, wind
The KJV’s “wind” is the same Hebrew word that also means breath. The scattering force is described through the same word that names breath’s unseen movement.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: wind
רוּחַ
This is the sense active in the verse: moving air carries the scattered away.
ruach: breath
רוּחַ
This is the same word as “wind,” restoring a connection that English gives two different words.
תִּתְהַלָּל
tit'hallal
GROWS FROM
ה־ל־ל
h-l-l
to praise or boast
“boast in” in this verse is tit'hallal. The word rendered “glory” belongs to a family of praise and boasting. Your boast is directed toward the LORD and the Set-Apart One of Israel, giving your rejoicing its center beyond yourself.
ALSO GROWS
hallel: praise
הַלֵּל
This form names praise directly, revealing the praise within the verse’s “glory.”
tehillah: praise or a song of praise
תְּהִלָּה
This related noun shows the same root becoming an expressed song of praise.
THE PATTERN
What opposes you loses its hold like chaff in the wind, while your joy and boast find their center in God.
The nations shall crash like the roar of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be pursued like chaff of the mountains before the breath, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the breath blows away.Whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.THE THREAD
The oxen and the young donkeys that serve the ground will eat salted mash, which is winnowed with the fork and the shovel.The “fan” here comes from the same ז־ר־ה (z-r-h, scatter or winnow) root as the action in Isaiah 41:16. Isaiah 30:24 uses winnowing to describe grain cleaned for food, revealing the separating work beneath the scattering image.
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