What Does Isaiah 43:6 Mean?
I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Do not hold back; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the edges of the earth.
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
I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;THE KEY
The farthest places are commanded to release those who already belong to the voice calling them home.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to whatever holds what belongs together at a distance: release it, hold it no longer. What feels beyond reach is still named as belonging, and is being brought in from the far edges.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Distance means you have been forgotten or are no longer claimed. The verse names the farthest ones as “my sons” and “my daughters” before they are brought near.
THE ROOT
תִּכְלָאִי
tikhlaʾi
GROWS FROM
כלא
k-l-ʾ
Restrain, shut in, withhold.
“Do not hold back” in this verse is tikhlaʾi. The word translated “keep not back” carries the sense of restraining or shutting in. Its related noun can mean “prison,” so the verse’s command reaches beyond delay: what is held in confinement is told to open.
ALSO GROWS
keleʾ: Prison; confinement.
כֶּלֶא
The act of holding in becomes a place where someone is held.
kālāʾ: To restrain or shut in.
כָּלָא
This verbal form makes the withholding in the verse concrete.
הָבִיאִי
hāviʾî
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
Come, enter; in a causative form, cause to come or enter.
“Bring” is a causative form of “come”: the command is to cause an arrival. Those at the earth’s far edges are described not as lost beyond reach, but as coming into nearness.
ALSO GROWS
bôʾ: Come; enter.
בּוֹא
The root’s basic sense is arrival or entry.
mābôʾ: Entrance; approach.
מָבוֹא
The related noun names a place or way of entering, echoing the movement toward home.
THE PATTERN
A voice of belonging gathers the scattered from every distance into one.
And he will lift a banner for the nations, and gather in the driven ones of Israel, and gather the scattered of Judah from the four wings of the earth.And say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and will gather them from every side, and bring them into their own ground.And not for that nation only, but that he would also gather together into one the children of God who were scattered abroad.THE THREAD
Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your seed from the sunrise, and gather you from the sunset.“Bring” in both verses comes from בוא (bôʾ), meaning “come” or “enter,” used here to mean “cause to come.” Verse 5 names east and west; verse 6 extends the same gathering to north and south, leaving no direction outside it.
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