What Does Isaiah 48:21 Mean?
And they did not thirst when he set them walking through the dry places. He brought waters out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
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
And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.THE KEY
What looks like the hardest obstruction can become the very place from which water flows.
THE MEANING
He leads you through the dry stretch without leaving you to thirst; water issues from the rock as it opens. The terrain that seems to deny life becomes the place where provision emerges.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that a hard, barren stretch proves that life has no source there.
THE ROOT
וַיִּזֹּבוּ
vayyizzōvū
GROWS FROM
זוב
to flow, run, or issue forth
“gushed out” in this verse is vayyizzōvū. The verse ends with movement: the waters issue out from the opened rock. This root also names bodily flow, so its focus is the act of something flowing forth, not only the substance that flows.
ALSO GROWS
lāzūv: to flow, run, or issue forth
לָזוּב
The infinitive names the same outward movement that the waters enact here.
zōvō: his flow or discharge
זֹבוֹ
This form appears in language for bodily flow, showing that the same root can name water issuing from rock or fluid issuing from the body.
בָּקַע
bāqaʿ
GROWS FROM
בקע
to split or cleave open
The rock does not merely stand beside the water; it is opened as the water comes forth. The related word for a valley or cleft carries that same image of a split in the land.
ALSO GROWS
ləvaqqēaʿ: to split or cleave open
לְבַקֵּעַ
It names the same act of opening expressed by “clave.”
biqʿāh: a valley or cleft
בִּקְעָה
A cleft in the landscape carries the root’s image of an opening in what had been whole.
צָמְאוּ
tsāmeʾū
GROWS FROM
צמא
to thirst or be thirsty
“thirsted” in this verse is tsāmeʾū. The verse names the condition that does not overtake them as they travel through dry country. The same root can name thirst itself and the drought that intensifies it, keeping the provision tied to the need it meets.
ALSO GROWS
tsāmēʾ: thirsty
צָמֵא
It names the state the verse says they do not enter.
tsimmāʾōn: thirst or drought
צִמָּאוֹן
This form connects thirst with the surrounding dryness through which he leads them.
THE PATTERN
Life-giving water can issue from what appears closed, dry, or barren.
Look, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You will strike the rock, and waters will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.He brought out trickles from the cliff, and made waters run down like rivers.The one who leans his weight into me, as the writing has said, rivers of living waters will flow from his belly.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When any man flows out of his flesh, by his flow he is soiled.The Hebrew behind “running issue” comes from זוב, the same root rendered “gushed out” here. The root names the flow itself, whether it issues from the body or from the rock.
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