What Does Isaiah 51:6 Mean?
Lift your eyes to the heavens, and look to the earth below. For the heavens will melt away like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die the same way. But my deliverance will be for the ages, and my alignment will not be cut off.
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
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.THE KEY
Even heaven and earth belong to what wears out, while deliverance and alignment endure.
THE MEANING
The sky above and ground beneath do not promise permanence; they can disappear and wear out. Yet deliverance and alignment remain through the ages, so change in the visible world does not erase what holds true now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that when the structures you depend on decay, everything meaningful is lost: the verse places those structures among what wears out, and deliverance and alignment among what remains.
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּעָה
yeshuah
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
To deliver or rescue; to bring out.
English “salvation” can sound like a status or outcome; this Hebrew word carries deliverance itself. While the heavens and earth fade, deliverance remains beyond the order that is fading.
ALSO GROWS
yeshaʿ: Deliverance, safety
יֵשַׁע
It shows that the verse names deliverance as a lasting reality.
moshiaʿ: Deliverer, rescuer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
It makes visible the root’s movement: one is brought out from what cannot hold.
צְדָקָה
tsedaqah
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
To be right, just, aligned.
The Hebrew word belongs to the same root as rightness and the person called righteous: it carries the sense of alignment. Beside enduring deliverance, it names what remains as both being brought out and being set in right relation.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice
צֶדֶק
It reveals the root’s connection between righteousness and what is rightly ordered.
tsaddiq: A righteous or just person
צַדִּיק
It shows alignment expressed in a person, not only as an abstract quality.
THE PATTERN
The created order wears out, while God’s enduring word and presence remain.
They perish, but you stand. All of them wear thin like a garment; as a robe you exchange them, and they are exchanged.The grass dries, the flower withers, but the word of our God stands for the ages.Heaven and earth pass by, but my words do not pass by.THE THREAD
For the moth will eat them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But my alignment will be for the ages, and my deliverance from generation to generation.Isaiah repeats the same Hebrew words for righteousness and salvation, then sharpens the garment image: what is worn away is clothing, while alignment and deliverance endure. The next verse makes the contrast tangible.
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