What Does Isaiah 43:13 Mean?
Yes, from the day, I AM; and there is none who can snatch out of my hand. I will work, and who shall turn it back?
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
Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?THE KEY
In Hebrew, “let it” means “turn it back”: what no one can snatch from God’s hand cannot be reversed once God acts.
THE MEANING
The One who is present before the day begins holds the one no rescuer can take away. God acts, and no one can turn that work back; the verse speaks of an action that remains secure now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that another power can take what God holds or reverse what God is doing.
THE ROOT
מַצִּיל
maṣṣîl
GROWS FROM
נצל
Snatch away, extract, rescue; in this form, deliver.
“snatch out of my hand” in this verse is maṣṣîl. The Hebrew word pictures a rescuer extracting someone from a grasp. This root can also describe stripping something away, so the image is precise: no one can wrench from this hand what it holds.
ALSO GROWS
niṣṣal: To escape or be rescued.
נִצַּל
Deliverance is pictured as being taken out of a grip, the very action no one can perform against this hand.
wayənatsəlû: They stripped away or carried off what belonged to another.
וַיְנַצְּלוּ
The same root carries the sense of taking away; here, no one can take away what God holds.
יְשִׁיבֶנָּה
yəšîḇennāh
GROWS FROM
שוב
Turn, return; in causative forms, bring or turn back.
“turn it back” in this verse is yəšîḇennāh. The verb rendered “let” comes from shuv, “turn back.” The question pictures reversal: who can make God’s action turn back?
ALSO GROWS
shav: Turned back or returned.
שָׁב
It makes the verse’s question about reversal concrete: who can cause a return from what God has set in motion?
hēshîv: Caused something to return or turned it back.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form echoes the force of the verse’s question about undoing God’s work.
אֶפְעַל
ʾefʿal
GROWS FROM
פעל
Do, act, work.
“work” in this verse is ʾefʿal. The verse places God’s active doing beside the question of who can turn it back. Its force is not only that God can act, but that no one can reverse the action.
ALSO GROWS
poʿel: One who works or acts.
פֹּעֵל
The same root names the actor; here, God speaks as the one actively doing the work.
poʿal: An act, deed, or work.
פֹּעַל
The noun makes visible the action that the verse says cannot be turned back.
THE PATTERN
What God purposes and acts upon cannot be nullified or turned back by another power.
For the LORD of hosts has counseled, and who will break it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?But our God is in the heavens, and he does whatever he delights in.But if it is of God, you cannot undo them, lest perhaps you be found even fighting against God.THE THREAD
He snatches me from my strong enemy and from my haters, for they are too firm for me.“Delivered” here comes from the same root, נצל (natsal, snatch away or rescue), as Isaiah’s “deliver.” In the psalm, God extracts the speaker from an enemy’s grasp; Isaiah says no one can extract from God’s hand.
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