What Does Isaiah 55:5 Mean?
Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and nations who did not know you will run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Set-Apart One of Israel, for he has adorned you.
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
Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.THE KEY
God’s glory adorns you so visibly that even strangers run toward you.
THE MEANING
You can call people you do not yet know, and people who have not known you can run toward you. Their movement gathers around the LORD your God and the set-apart one of Israel, because he has adorned you with his beauty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must already be known and understood before you can draw people toward what God is doing through you.
THE ROOT
פֵּאֲרָךְ
pe'arekha
GROWS FROM
פאר
pa'ar
to adorn, beautify, or make glorious
“adorned” in this verse is pe'arekha. The verb holds glory as visible adornment: God makes beauty apparent on you. The verse links that beauty with the movement of people who have never known you.
ALSO GROWS
tif'eret: beauty, ornament, splendor
תִּפְאֶרֶת
This branch shows glory as a beauty that can be seen, matching the verse’s image of people drawn toward you.
pe'er: headdress or ornament
פְּאֵר
This word makes the root’s sense of adornment concrete: what God gives you becomes visible, like an ornament.
תֵדַע
teida
GROWS FROM
ידע
yada
to know, perceive, or recognize through encounter
“knowest / knew” in this verse is teida. The same root appears on both sides: you call people you do not yet know, and people who have not known you run toward you. The repeated word makes prior familiarity unnecessary for connection to begin.
ALSO GROWS
da'at: knowledge or perception
דַּעַת
It carries the same root into the noun for knowledge, grounding the verse’s knowing in perception rather than mere information.
moda: acquaintance or kinsman
מוֹדָע
This branch points toward personal familiarity, making the verse’s welcome of the not-yet-known especially clear.
תִּקְרָא
tiqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
to call out or summon
This call is more than naming someone; it summons them into reach. The same root also appears in words for reading aloud and gathering, so a call can open into a meeting.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: a convocation or public reading
מִקְרָא
The branch shows a call becoming a gathering, as people beyond your familiar circle assemble in response.
qeri'ah: a calling or reading aloud
קְרִיאָה
It preserves both voice and invitation in the root, illuminating the verse’s call that reaches people who do not yet know you.
THE PATTERN
When God’s character becomes visible in a person, people beyond their familiar circle are drawn toward it.
And nations shall walk to your light, and kings to the glow of your rising.Thus says the LORD of hosts. In those days ten men out of every tongue of the nations shall take hold, and shall take hold of the wing of a man of Judah, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.And I, if I am lifted up from the ground, will draw all humankind to myself.THE THREAD
Surely the coastlands shall stretch toward me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, to the nature of the LORD your God, and to the Set-Apart One of Israel, because he has adorned you.Isaiah 60:9 repeats פֵּאֲרָךְ (pe’arekha, “he has adorned or glorified you”) from this verse. The shared root connects God’s adornment of you with distant peoples coming toward you.
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