What Does Isaiah 57:3 Mean?
But you, draw near here, sons of the sorceress, seed of the adulterer and of the harlot.
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
But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.THE KEY
The verse’s sting is that a lineage is named as seed: what is practiced is pictured as something sown and reproduced.
THE MEANING
The summons reaches you now and names a line through divination and sexual betrayal. Its seed-image treats these practices as generative: what is planted can reproduce a way of life. The accusation stays severe; the text does not soften it.
THE ROOT
עֹנְנָה
ʿōnənāh
GROWS FROM
ענן
ʿ-n-n
Practice divination or read omens; the relation to the separate word for cloud is uncertain.
“sorceress” in this verse is ʿōnənāh. The Hebrew names a diviner through a root whose consonants also appear in the word for cloud. That echo places omen-reading beside cloud-signs, though the exact etymological connection is uncertain.
ALSO GROWS
meʿonen: One who practices divination.
מְעוֹנֵן
This related form makes clear that the verse names a practice, not merely a mysterious identity.
ʿanan: Cloud.
עָנָן
The shared consonants echo the language of clouds beside the practice of reading omens; the historical link between the words is uncertain.
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
Sow; seed.
“seed” in this verse is zeraʿ. The root holds both what is sown and what grows from it. The verse’s image therefore joins ancestry to a pattern that can be planted and reproduced.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow or plant seed.
זָרַע
The verb makes the verse’s lineage-image active: seed is something put into the ground, not only a label for descent.
zeraʿ: Seed or offspring.
זֶרַע
The same word can name both what is planted and the descendants it produces.
קִרְבוּ
qirvū
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
Come near or approach.
“draw near here” in this verse is qirvū. The summons is an approach-word: it pulls those named into direct presence. The same root forms the word for an offering brought near, adding the sense of nearness to this severe confrontation.
ALSO GROWS
qorbān: Offering brought near.
קָרְבָּן
This branch shows the root’s movement toward nearness, deepening the force of the summons.
hiqrīv: To bring near or present.
הִקְרִיב
The verbal form makes the shared action explicit: approaching is movement into closeness.
THE PATTERN
What is planted can reproduce as a lineage, while each person remains answerable for their own way.
Woe, nation that misses the mark, a people heavy with crookedness, a seed of those who do harm, children who ruin. They have let go of the LORD, spurned the Set-Apart One of Israel, and pulled away backward.The living soul that is missing shall die. The son shall not bear the crookedness of the father, nor shall the father bear the crookedness of the son; the alignment of the aligned shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.THE THREAD
Going, he goes and weeps, carrying the bag of seed; coming, he comes in a ringing cry, carrying his sheaves.The same root names seed as both what is sown and offspring. Psalm 126:6 makes the image’s movement visible: seed carried out returns as a harvest, opening Isaiah’s lineage-image as a pattern that reproduces.
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