What Does Isaiah 51:1 Mean?
Hear and respond to me, you who pursue alignment, you who seek the LORD. Look to the rock you were cut from, and to the hollow of the pit you were dug out of.
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
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.THE KEY
The path toward alignment opens by seeing that you were quarried from a source beyond yourself.
THE MEANING
You seek the LORD and pursue alignment; the verse turns your gaze to the rock and quarry from which you were cut. Your present identity is connected to a source and a formation that precede your own effort.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that your life begins with your own effort or that you are self-created.
THE ROOT
חֻצַּבְתֶּם
ḥuṣṣabtem
GROWS FROM
חצב
ḥ-ṣ-b
To hew, quarry, or cut out.
“cut from” in this verse is ḥuṣṣabtem. The word pictures you as material taken from a source and shaped through extraction. The verse asks you to see the source beneath your present form, not only the form itself.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṣab: To hew or cut stone.
חָצַב
The action behind “hewn” makes your origin a matter of being cut from something, not appearing from nowhere.
ḥōṣēv: One who hews; a hewer.
חֹצֵב
This related form makes the quarry image vivid: the rock is a source from which material is drawn.
צֶדֶק
ṣedeq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right, just, or aligned.
The people addressed are pursuing alignment, and the verse pairs that pursuit with remembering their source. Alignment appears here as a path connected to where you come from.
ALSO GROWS
ṣaddiq: A just or aligned person.
צַדִּיק
This related word names the person characterized by the alignment being pursued.
ṣedaqah: Justice or righteousness; alignment.
צְדָקָה
This form shows the same root describing alignment as a quality or practice, not only an abstract idea.
THE PATTERN
The text links present identity to a source that formed or sustains it.
You have looked away from the Rock who bore you, and you have forgotten the God who labored you.Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah, who writhed in labor for you. For one I called him, and blessed him, and multiplied him.And all drank the same breath-given drink, for they drank from the breath-given rock that followed them, and that rock was the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah, who writhed in labor for you. For one I called him, and blessed him, and multiplied him.The next verse names Abraham and Sarah, anchoring the rock and quarry image in the source from which this people comes. It then traces how one called person becomes many, making origin and increase part of the same picture.
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