What Does Isaiah 57:4 Mean?
Against whom do you lounge? Against whom do you widen the mouth and lengthen the tongue? Are you not children of rebellion, a seed of falsehood?
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
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood,THE KEY
The verse exposes ridicule as falsehood in bloom: what has taken root inside stretches the mouth and tongue into mockery.
THE MEANING
Where mockery feels like harmless play, this verse names the delight beneath it and shows rebellion and falsehood taking shape in speech. The widened mouth and lengthened tongue make that inner source visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Cruel mockery is harmless because it is only play.
THE ROOT
תִּתְעַנָּגוּ
titʿannāgū
GROWS FROM
ענג
ʿ-n-g
To take delight, luxuriate, or find pleasure.
“lounge” in this verse is titʿannāgū. The word gives the mockery a source in delight: the speakers take pleasure in it. English can make the taunt sound like mere play, while the root points to the pleasure driving the speech.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānaḡ: To take delight or luxuriate.
עָנַג
This verb names the pleasure that Isaiah places inside the mockery.
ʿōneḡ: Delight, pleasure.
עֹנֶג
The related noun makes delight itself a quality; here, that delight attaches to taunting.
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow seed; what is sown and what grows from it.
Calling falsehood a seed gives it generative force: it is not only a lie spoken once, but a source from which more can grow. The verse pairs that seed with children, framing the mockery as something arising from an origin.
ALSO GROWS
zeraʿ: Seed, offspring.
זֶרַע
The word holds planting and lineage together, so falsehood appears as both source and what it produces.
zāraʿ: To sow.
זָרַע
The verb shows how a seed becomes a continuing process of growth and spread.
פֶּשַׁע
pešaʿ
GROWS FROM
פשע
p-sh-ʿ
To break away, revolt, or rebel.
The verse names the speakers as children of rebellion, placing their speech within a break from truth rather than treating it as an isolated joke. Paired with the seed of falsehood, rebellion becomes an origin from which the taunt grows.
ALSO GROWS
pešaʿ: Rebellion, a breakaway.
פֶּשַׁע
This noun names the rupture the verse associates with the speakers’ mockery.
pāšaʿ: To rebel, break away.
פָּשַׁע
The verb shows the action carried by the noun: transgression is a departure from what is true.
THE PATTERN
Speech grows outward from what has taken root within, making the mouth reveal the source that feeds it.
Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
In breaking away and lying against the LORD, and turning our backs on our God, speaking pressure and revolt, conceiving and murmuring from the heart words of lies.Isaiah 59:13 uses the same Hebrew roots פשע (pāšaʿ, rebellion) and שקר (sheqer, falsehood) found in this verse, joining them to speech conceived and uttered from the heart. That pairing shows the seed and taunting tongue here as one movement: inner falsehood growing into public speech.
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