What Does Isaiah 51:17 Mean?
Awake, awake, rise, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his burning. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling, and drained them.
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
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.THE KEY
Jerusalem is commanded to rise while still named as the one who has drunk the cup to its dregs.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as Jerusalem: you have drunk the LORD’s cup of fury to its dregs, and now hear the double call to wake and stand. The verse names the reeling without disguise and places standing beside what has been fully endured.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that drinking the full measure means you must remain collapsed: the one who has emptied the cup is still summoned to stand.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) with its dual ending, the two wholenesses. The address holds that nature alongside the suffering the verse names without softening it.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, completeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried within Jerusalem’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
The same root describes the state of being whole, giving the name a nature beyond a place label.
קוּמִי
qūmî
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
To rise, stand, or be established.
“rise” in this verse is qūmî. The command is a concrete call to take a standing position. The same root also gives words for establishing and place, so rising here is a return to standing after the cup leaves Jerusalem reeling.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: Rise, stand.
קוּם
This is the root action carried by the command to Jerusalem.
hēqîm: Raise, set up, establish.
הֵקִים
The root connects standing with being set firmly in place.
maqom: Place, standing place.
מָקוֹם
The word for place grows from the same root of standing or being established.
שָׁתִית
shātît
GROWS FROM
שתה
sh-t-h
To drink.
“drunk” in this verse is shātît. The verse repeats the drinking verb and then names the dregs that are wrung out. The cup is not merely held before Jerusalem; its contents are taken in to the last measure.
ALSO GROWS
shātāh: To drink.
שָׁתָה
This is the same drinking action expressed by the repeated verb in the verse.
mishtēh: Drinking feast, banquet.
מִשְׁתֶּה
The root can name an occasion organized around drinking, keeping the verse’s cup imagery concrete.
THE PATTERN
The cup makes judgment a portion that is drunk through, with its dregs marking the full measure.
For a cup is in the hand of the LORD, and the wine foams, full and mixed; he pours from it, but its dregs, all the wicked of the earth, drain and drink.For thus says the LORD God of Israel to me, Take this cup of burning wine from my hand, and make all the nations, to whom I send you, drink it.And he himself drinks from the wine of the seething of God, poured out undiluted into the cup of his swelling. And he is tormented in fire and sulfur before the face of the set-apart messengers, and before the face of the Lamb.THE THREAD
Thus says your Lord, the LORD, and your God, who contends for his people. Look, I have taken from your hand the cup of reeling, the dregs of the cup of my burning. You shall not go on drinking it.The next verse names the same cup and its dregs, then says they are taken out of Jerusalem’s hand. The one summoned to rise after drinking the full measure is told the cup will not be drunk again.
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