What Does Isaiah 42:11 Mean?
Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, the enclosures where Kedar settles. Let those who settle in the rock sing, let them shout from the head of the mountains.
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
Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.THE KEY
Wilderness and rock join the chorus, so nothing remote or immovable is mere background.
THE MEANING
The reader’s landscape is gathered into the song: wild ground and settled places lift a voice, while rock dwellers sing and mountain heights shout. The verse leaves no silent zone outside the chorus; even the remote and apparently immovable belong to its sound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that remote, hard, or nonhuman places are merely silent background dissolves here: the verse names them among the singers and shouters.
THE ROOT
יִשְׂאוּ
yis’u
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
nasa
To lift, carry, or bear.
The verb translated “lift up” is also the root of carrying and bearing. The voice is pictured as something borne aloft, as though the landscape does not merely contain the sound but carries it into the open.
ALSO GROWS
māśśāʾ: A burden; also an utterance or oracle.
מַשָּׂא
The same root can describe what is borne and what is spoken, linking the raised voice with something carried outward.
nāśîʾ: One elevated; a chief or ruler.
נָשִׂיא
The root’s image of lifting extends from voices to a person raised in standing.
יָרֹנּוּ
yārōnnû
GROWS FROM
רנן
ranan
To ring out in song or give a joyful cry.
“sing” in this verse is yārōnnû. The singing here is a ringing shout, not a quiet sound contained within the singers. The same root appears in Isaiah 55:12 for the song into which mountains break forth, joining these landscapes across the two verses.
ALSO GROWS
rinnāh: A ringing song or joyful cry.
רִנָּה
This is the noun from the same root used for the mountains’ singing in Isaiah 55:12.
renānāh: A joyful song or shout.
רְנָנָה
The related form keeps the sound of jubilation in view: this is a cry that carries beyond the speaker.
קֵדָר
Qēḏār
GROWS FROM
קדר
qadar
To grow dark or become dim.
Kedar’s name is commonly linked with the root קדר (qadar, “to grow dark”). The verse gives this dark-associated name a place in the song, so its chorus reaches even what the name suggests is darkened.
ALSO GROWS
qādar: To grow dark or become black.
קָדַר
This verb shares the root commonly associated with Kedar’s name.
qōdēr: Darkened; in mourning.
קֹדֵר
This related form extends the root’s sense of darkness into a state of grief, which the verse draws into the singers’ chorus.
THE PATTERN
When praise rises, the whole landscape becomes audible alongside human settlements.
For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.Let the rivers clap their palms; let the mountains ring out together.And he answered and said, "I tell you, if these should hold their tongues, the stones will cry out."THE THREAD
For you shall go out in joy, and be carried forth in wholeness. The mountains and the hills shall burst into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their palms.The singing verb here, יָרֹנּוּ (yārōnnû, “they ring out in song”), shares the root רנן (ranan, “ring out, sing joyfully”) with רִנָּה (rinnāh, “ringing song”) in Isaiah 55:12. Isaiah 42 places that cry in wilderness, towns, rock, and mountains; Isaiah 55 makes the mountains themselves break into the same sound.
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