What Does Isaiah 5:21 Mean?
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and discerning before their own faces!
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
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!THE KEY
When your own eyes become both the measure and the witness, wisdom turns into a closed room.
THE MEANING
This warning meets you wherever your own perspective becomes its own proof. You can hold intelligence and discernment, yet still narrow them when nothing beyond your own judgment can test what you see. The verse names the moment when understanding folds back into self-confirmation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that certainty about your own judgment proves that your judgment is clear.
THE ROOT
נְבֹנִים
nevonim
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ן
b-y-n
To distinguish, understand, or discern.
“discerning” in this verse is nevonim. The word carries the sense of understanding that can distinguish between things. Set beside “in their own sight,” it shows discernment confined to a self-made frame: the capacity to see distinctions remains, but the self supplies the only measure.
ALSO GROWS
binah: understanding or discernment
בִּינָה
It shares the root’s sense of understanding through distinction, clarifying the depth carried by “prudent.”
bein: between or among
בֵּין
Its relation to the root’s sense of distinguishing gives discernment a relational shape: seeing what lies between or differs.
חֲכָמִים
chachamim
GROWS FROM
ח־כ־ם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful.
“wise” in this verse is chachamim. The verse does not discard wisdom; it names where these people locate it: “in their own eyes.” The root’s connection to skill makes the warning sharper: real capacity can still be enclosed by the one who claims to possess it.
ALSO GROWS
chokhmah: wisdom or skill
חָכְמָה
It names the quality attributed to them, while the verse questions the self-made standard by which they assess it.
chacham: wise or skillful
חָכָם
This related form keeps the focus on a real capacity whose limits become visible when it answers only to itself.
THE PATTERN
Discernment narrows when the self becomes its own unquestioned measure.
Do not be wise in your own eyes. Be in awe of the LORD, and turn aside from harm.Hold the same mind toward one another. Do not set your minds on heights, but be carried along with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own sight.Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise.THE THREAD
Therefore, behold, I will add again to do a wonder among this people, even a wonder and a marvel; for the wisdom of their wise ones will lose its way, and the discernment of their discerning ones will be hidden.The same Hebrew word families for “wise” and “prudent” return here: חָכָם (chacham), wise or skillful, and בִּינָה (binah), understanding or discernment. The paired roots show how wisdom and discernment can disappear from view when the self-contained judgment that claims them is exposed.
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