What Does Isaiah 48:11 Mean?
For my own sake, even for my own sake, I will do it, for how should my nature be pierced? And my weight I will not give to another.
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
For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.THE KEY
The “glory” God refuses to hand over is weight, the full reality of who God is, not a prize or reputation.
THE MEANING
God acts for God’s own sake, stated twice, so the ground of the act is God’s nature rather than the reader’s merit. The KJV renders the question as “how should my name be polluted?”; in the Hebrew line, “my name” is inferred from the surrounding reference to God’s name, rather than repeated here. God’s weight is not transferred to another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God’s action depends on the reader being worthy enough to trigger it. It also refuses the idea that God’s weight can be assigned to a rival.
THE ROOT
כְּבוֹדִי
kəvōdî
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
The word carries the sense of weight, the substance that deserves regard. When God says this weight will not be given to another, the verse presents God’s own reality as something no rival can claim.
ALSO GROWS
kāvēd: heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
It makes weightiness the tangible sense beneath the verse’s “glory.”
kibbēd: to honor, treat as weighty
כִּבֵּד
This branch links honor with recognizing someone’s weight, rather than with mere acclaim.
יֵחָל
yēḥāl
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To profane or make common.
“pierced” in this verse is yēḥāl. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of treating what is set apart as common. The word “name” is supplied by the KJV from the surrounding context; the Hebrew line leaves it implicit, sharpening the question of whether God’s identity can be profaned.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: common, ordinary
חֹל
It shows the contrast between what is treated as ordinary and what is set apart.
ḥillēl: to profane, treat as common
חִלֵּל
This verb makes clear that the threat is a change in how God’s name is regarded.
אֶתֵּן
ʾetten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is ʾetten. This root can mean placing something as well as giving it. The verse pictures God’s weight as something that will not be placed under another’s claim.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: to give, set, place
נָתַן
The root’s concrete sense of placing illuminates the refusal to assign God’s glory elsewhere.
mattānāh: gift
מַתָּנָה
The gift branch highlights that giving is a transfer, which the verse explicitly refuses here.
THE PATTERN
God’s action and the weight it reveals originate in God, so no rival can rightly claim them.
I am the LORD, and this is my name. My weight I will not give to another, nor my praise to hewn images.Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but clothe your nature in weight, for your faithful love and for the sake of your truth.For from him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him let there be weight for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
I am the LORD, and this is my name. My weight I will not give to another, nor my praise to hewn images.Isaiah 42:8 repeats the same refusal and uses the same word for “glory,” rooted in weight. Read beside it, Isaiah 48:11’s repeated “for mine own sake” points to God’s own nature as the source of the weight no rival can receive.
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