What Does Isaiah 56:3 Mean?
Let not the son of the foreigner, who has attached himself to the LORD, say, The LORD will surely divide me from his people. And let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.
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
Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “joined” shares its root with Levi’s name, so the stranger’s attachment to the LORD names a bond that ancestry alone cannot define.
THE MEANING
When your origin or body seems to place you outside, this verse speaks to the fear that the LORD has cut you off from his people. It refuses both that sentence and the eunuch’s image of himself as a dry tree; the next verse gives eunuchs an enduring name and a place among the LORD’s people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that foreign origin or a eunuch’s body proves the LORD has separated someone from his people.
THE ROOT
הַנִּלְוֶה
hanilveh
GROWS FROM
לוה
l-w-h
to join, attach, or accompany
“attached himself” in this verse is hanilveh. English makes joined sound like a single action, but this root also gives the name Levi, which Leah links to being joined to her. Here the root describes a foreigner attached to the LORD, making belonging a bond rather than an inherited label.
ALSO GROWS
Levi: Levi; joined
לֵוִי
In Genesis 29:34, Leah says her husband will be joined to her and names her son Levi from this root, turning a bond into a name.
leviyyah: accompaniment, company
לְוִיָּה
This related form carries joining into the sense of accompanying someone; the foreigner here is described as attached to the LORD.
יַבְדִּילַנִי
yabdilani
GROWS FROM
בדל
b-d-l
to separate, divide, or distinguish
“divide” in this verse is yabdilani. The Hebrew intensifies the imagined separation by repeating the verb: surely separate me. Set beside the opening word for joined, that fear of final division is directly contradicted by the bond the verse already names.
ALSO GROWS
badal: to separate or divide
בָּדַל
This basic form gives the root’s sense of division, the very condition the stranger fears despite being joined to the LORD.
hibdil: to set apart or distinguish
הִבְדִּיל
This form shows separation as an act of distinguishing; the verse challenges the claim that the LORD has distinguished the joined stranger away from the people.
יָבֵשׁ
yavesh
GROWS FROM
יבש
y-b-sh
to be dry or withered
“dry tree” in this verse is yavesh. The eunuch’s image turns a bodily limit into a picture of total barrenness. The next verse answers that fear with a place and an enduring name, so dryness does not get to define the person’s whole future.
ALSO GROWS
yabbashah: dry land
יַבָּשָׁה
The same root describes dry land, showing that the word names a condition of dryness, not by itself a final verdict about what can belong or endure.
yavesh: dry, withered; to dry up
יָבֵשׁ
This form carries the image of withering found in the eunuch’s self-description, which the passage does not allow to be the last word.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s belonging crosses boundaries people treat as decisive, including ancestry, bodily status, and social rank.
And the sons of the foreigner, who have attached themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one who guards the sabbath from being pierced, and takes hold of my covenant.And he commanded the chariot to stand; and they went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he immersed him.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.Leah’s phrase joined unto me uses the same root as Isaiah’s joined himself, and the name Levi grows from that wordplay. Isaiah applies this language of attachment to a foreigner joined to the LORD, bringing the fear of separation into direct contact with a named bond.
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