What Does Isaiah 41:21 Mean?
Bring near your case, says the LORD; bring near your bones, says the King of Jacob.
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
Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.THE KEY
The King makes rival power do more than claim authority: it must bring its case and its strength into the open.
THE MEANING
A power that claims your trust is summoned to state its case and show its strongest reasons before the LORD. The title “King of Jacob” places the contest under the rule of the one who governs Jacob, whose name carries heel-grasping and overtaking; even the struggle for position stands beneath that rule.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a rival claim is true because it speaks with divine force: the claim still has to produce its case before the King.
THE ROOT
רִיבְכֶם
rîv-khem your case
GROWS FROM
ריב
To contend, dispute, or plead a case.
The word names a live contention, not merely an abstract reason. The King calls rival claims to state their case where it can be heard and judged.
ALSO GROWS
rîb: Case, dispute, or contention.
רִיב
This is the noun in “your cause”; it frames a rival claim as a case that must be presented.
merivah: Contention or strife.
מְרִיבָה
This branch names open conflict, showing that the dispute is brought into view rather than hidden.
עֲצֻמוֹתֵיכֶם
ʿatsumoteykhem your mighty
GROWS FROM
עצם
To grow strong, mighty, or abundant.
“bones” in this verse is ʿatsumoteykhem your mighty. The phrase carries the force of what is mighty or substantial. The challenge reaches beyond a claim’s words to the strength it says it possesses.
ALSO GROWS
ʿatsum: Mighty, strong, or numerous.
עָצוּם
This adjective carries the force behind the “strong reasons” the rivals are told to bring forward.
ʿotsem: Might or strength.
עֹצֶם
This noun makes explicit the strength that the verse demands be put on display.
יַעֲקֹב
Yaʿaqov Jacob the
GROWS FROM
עקב
Heel; to follow at the heel, overtake, or supplant.
“Jacob, in “King of Jacob”” in this verse is Yaʿaqov Jacob the. The title is particular: this is the King of Jacob, whose name carries the image of heel-grasping and overtaking. The contest stands under the rule of the one who governs even the struggle for position.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaqev: Heel.
עָקֵב
The name Jacob carries this bodily image of holding the heel.
ʿaqav: To follow at the heel, overtake, or supplant.
עָקַב
This verbal branch shows the action carried in the name Jacob.
THE PATTERN
A claim to divine authority is tested by whether it can present an answerable case and show what it promises.
When the prophet speaks in the nature of the LORD, if the word does not come to be, nor arrive, it is the word the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it in a boiling over. You shall not cower from him.And call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, The word is good.Beloved, do not lean your weight on every breath, but test the breaths, whether they come out of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.THE THREAD
The LORD stands up to contend, and stands to judge the people.The word behind “plead” is לָרִיב (lā-rîb, to contend or bring a case), from the same root ריב (rîb, case or contention) as “your cause” here. Isaiah 41 calls rival claims to plead theirs; Isaiah 3 shows the LORD standing to plead, placing both sides of the hearing in the same courtroom language.
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