What Does Isaiah 51:2 Mean?
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.
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
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls Abraham אֶחָד (echad, one), while his name is explained as “father of many nations”: the promise is already hidden in the movement from one to many.
THE MEANING
This verse places you inside a story that begins with one: Abraham is called אֶחָד (echad, one), blessed, and made many, while Sarah is named as the one who bore the people addressed. Your present identity carries an origin whose reach exceeds the size of its beginning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A beginning that is only one cannot become a people.
THE ROOT
וְאַרְבֵּהוּ
ve'arbehu
GROWS FROM
רבה
ravah
To become many, grow numerous, or increase.
“multiplied him” in this verse is ve'arbehu. This root also gives רַב (rav, many or great) and הִרְבָּה (hirbah, made many or increased). Abraham is called as one, then the verb opens into multitude: the increase is a becoming-many.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Many; great.
רַב
The same root links increase directly to the state of being many.
hirbah: He made many; he increased.
הִרְבָּה
This causative form shows the movement from one person to a multitude.
וַאֲבָרְכֵהוּ
va'avarkhehu
GROWS FROM
ברך
barakh
To bless; the same root also names the knee.
“blessed” in this verse is va'avarkhehu. The word for blessing shares its root with the word for knee. In the verse, blessing stands between the call and the increase, carrying a bodily image within the promise.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root gives blessing an embodied connection to the bent knee.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This noun makes the root’s blessing sense explicit.
קְרָאתִיו
qerativ
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call, summon, name, or proclaim.
The root of “called” also appears in מִקְרָא (miqra, reading or assembly). A call can name one person and also gather a people, fitting the verse’s movement from one to many.
ALSO GROWS
qara: Call, summon, name, or proclaim.
קָרָא
The root keeps naming and summoning together in the phrase “I called him.”
miqra: Reading or assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how a call can extend beyond one person and gather others.
THE PATTERN
What begins as one under God’s call expands into many through blessing.
And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and be a blessing.No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.As it is written, I have set you as a father of many nations, before God, on whom he leaned his full weight, who makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were.THE THREAD
And I will set my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.Isaiah’s “increased him” and Genesis’s “multiply thee” use the same root, רבה (ravah, increase or become many). The repeated root makes the movement clear: the one called is the one made numerous.
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