What Does Isaiah 43:16 Mean?
Thus says the LORD, who sets a way in the sea, and a trodden path in the strong waters.
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
Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures the LORD placing a way within the sea itself, right where footing seems impossible.
THE MEANING
The verse names the LORD as the one who gives a way through the waters that overwhelm sight. The sea remains in the picture, yet a path is there within it. Your present impossibility is not, by itself, proof that passage is absent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A way can exist only after the threatening waters are gone.
THE ROOT
הַנֹּתֵן
hannōtēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“sets” in this verse is hannōtēn. The Hebrew form rendered “maketh” carries the sense of giving or placing. The way is presented as provision placed within the sea, not as something that appears only after the sea is gone.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This root meaning opens “maketh a way” as the giving or placing of a path within the waters.
mattan: A gift or present.
מַתָּן
This related word carries the sense of something given; the way in the verse is likewise given where it is needed.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step.
The word for “way” grows from the action of stepping or treading. What the verse calls a way is actual footing in the place where the waters seem to deny it.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread or step; also to bend a bow.
דָּרַךְ
Its sense of taking a step gives “way” a bodily concreteness: this is ground for passage, not merely a direction.
midrakh: A place trodden, or a footprint.
מִדְרָךְ
This related word evokes the trace of feet; the path in the verse becomes a place where movement can happen.
THE PATTERN
The LORD makes passage through waters that appear to block all movement.
And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.Your way is in the sea, and your trail in the many waters, and your footprints are not perceived.In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them, walking upon the sea.THE THREAD
Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.The same Hebrew word for “way,” דֶּרֶךְ (derekh), appears in both verses. The image shifts from a path within overwhelming waters to a way through barren wilderness: neither flood nor emptiness has the final word on passage.
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