What Does Isaiah 43:17 Mean?
Who brings out the chariot and the horse, the army and the strength; together they lie down, and they will not rise; they go out; they are quenched like flax.
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
Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.THE KEY
The assembled force goes out like a flax wick and does not rise again.
THE MEANING
You see the chariot, horse, army, and might assembled in one display, then lying down together. The verse joins their not rising again to the image of flax tow being extinguished. Its scale does not guarantee that this force will continue or reclaim its former standing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a force powerful enough to rise is therefore permanent, or can always rise again.
THE ROOT
כָּבוּ
kavu
GROWS FROM
כבה
To go out, be extinguished, or quench.
“quenched” in this verse is kavu. The verb ties the army’s end to the language of a flame going out. Paired with the flax tow, it pictures force losing its fire, not merely being pushed aside.
ALSO GROWS
tikhbeh: The same root describes a fire that must not go out.
תִּכְבֶּה
The root names fire’s capacity either to continue or to cease.
mekhabeh: Isaiah uses this form in the image of tow and a spark: “and none shall quench them.”
מְכַבֶּה
The repeated tow-and-fire language makes the verse’s image part of a recurring pattern within Isaiah.
יָקוּמוּ
yaqumu
GROWS FROM
קום
To rise, stand, or be established.
“rise” in this verse is yaqumu. The verse does not only describe a fall; it says this force does not stand again. The root also gives words for a place to stand and for raising something up, so the ending reaches beyond motion to the loss of a re-established position.
ALSO GROWS
maqom: A place or position, formed from the root for standing.
מָקוֹם
Their not rising points to no return to the position they occupied.
heqim: The causative form means to raise or establish something.
הֵקִים
What does not rise again is not re-established in its former power.
THE PATTERN
The assembled instruments of force can be brought to an end so completely that they cannot reclaim their former power.
Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea; his chosen third officers have sunk in the Sea of Reeds.He halts wars to the edge of the earth; he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in two; he burns the wagons in the fire.And God picked out the lowborn things of the world, and the things treated as nothing, the things that are not, so that he might make idle the things that are.THE THREAD
He halts wars to the edge of the earth; he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in two; he burns the wagons in the fire.Both verses use רֶכֶב (rekhev, “chariot”). Isaiah shows the chariot force lying down and going out; the psalm shows the chariot burned as wars cease.
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