What Does Isaiah 5:29 Mean?
Their roaring shall be like a lion, and they shall roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize the prey, and carry it off to safety, and none shall snatch it back.
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
Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.THE KEY
The verb for carrying the prey away belongs to the Hebrew family of escape and deliverance, setting the predator’s removal against the final absence of anyone to rescue it.
THE MEANING
The force in this verse is not only heard; it takes hold. Its roar becomes the grip that carries prey beyond reach, and no rescuer appears in the scene. The violence remains visible: the one carried away is prey.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A violent roar is only a display and never becomes a real taking; here the sound turns into seizure and removal.
THE ROOT
וְיַפְלִיט
weyafliṭ
GROWS FROM
פלט
To escape or slip away; in causative forms, to let escape, deliver, or carry off.
“carry it off to safety” in this verse is weyafliṭ. The verb belongs to the same root family as escape and deliverance, yet here it describes the predator carrying its prey off. The verse then ends with no one to pull the prey free.
ALSO GROWS
pālīṭ: A fugitive or survivor; one who escapes.
פָּלִיט
This branch makes escape part of the word’s own family, even as the verse depicts the prey being carried out of reach.
pelēṭāh: Escape or those who survive.
פְּלֵיטָה
The verse’s removal of the prey stands beside a root family that can name survival and escape.
טֶרֶף
ṭereph
GROWS FROM
טרף
To tear or tear apart.
English names the thing as prey, while Hebrew keeps the tearing audible in the word itself. What the lion seizes is already named by the violence being done to it.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāraph: To tear, rend, or seize as prey.
טָרַף
This verb gives the action carried inside the noun translated “prey.”
ṭərēphāh: An animal or flesh torn by a beast.
טְרֵפָה
This related form makes the torn condition explicit, extending the verse’s image beyond a mere chase.
מַצִּיל
maṣṣīl
GROWS FROM
נצל
To snatch away, rescue, or deliver from danger.
“snatch it back” in this verse is maṣṣīl. Rescue here is an act of pulling someone out of danger. The verse ends by naming the missing counteraction: no one snatches the prey away from the lion.
ALSO GROWS
niṣṣal: To escape or be rescued.
נִצַּל
This form names the escape that the verse says does not happen.
hiṣṣīl: To rescue or deliver.
הִצִּיל
This causative form gives the action implied by “deliver”: someone pulls another out of danger.
THE PATTERN
Predatory force makes its approach audible, then turns the threat into a taking.
Lest he tear my living soul like a lion, rending it to pieces, while there is none to pull free.For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and walk away; I will carry off, and none will snatch away.THE THREAD
Lest he tear my living soul like a lion, rending it to pieces, while there is none to pull free.Isaiah calls what the lion seizes טֶרֶף (ṭereph), “prey”; Psalm 7 uses יִטְרֹף (yiṭrof), “tear,” from the same root, טרף. Psalm 7 also repeats the ending: no one is there to deliver.
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