What Does Isaiah 59:13 Mean?
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.
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
In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.THE KEY
Falsehood is not a stray sentence here: it is conceived within the heart before it is spoken.
THE MEANING
This verse names a movement alive now: turning away from God travels through denial into oppressive, rebellious speech. What comes from the mouth as falsehood has first been carried within the heart.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that falsehood is only a verbal slip: here, spoken deceit grows from the heart and belongs to a wider break from God.
THE ROOT
הָרוֹ
hārô
GROWS FROM
הרה
h-r-h
to conceive, become pregnant
“conceiving” in this verse is hārô. The Hebrew uses the language of conception just before it describes words being uttered from the heart. False speech is shown as something carried within before it comes into the open.
ALSO GROWS
hārāh: to conceive; to be pregnant
הָרָה
This verb names the inward formation that precedes the words spoken in the verse.
hērāyôn: conception; pregnancy
הֵרָיוֹן
The related noun keeps the image concrete: what is spoken has first been carried within.
וְכַחֵשׁ
wĕkaḥēš
GROWS FROM
כחש
k-ḥ-š
to deny, disown, or deal falsely
“lying against the LORD” in this verse is wĕkaḥēš. The Hebrew verb כָּחַשׁ (kāḥaš, “deny or deal falsely”) makes the lie relational: it is directed against the LORD. Later, the verse names spoken שֶׁקֶר (šeqer, “falsehood”), carrying that denial into speech.
ALSO GROWS
kāḥaš: to deny or disown
כָּחַשׁ
This branch shows the relational force of the lying named at the start of the verse.
kaḥaš: deception; false dealing
כַּחַשׁ
The related noun makes lying a way of dealing falsely, not only a false sentence.
פָּשֹׁעַ
pāšōaʿ
GROWS FROM
פשע
p-š-ʿ
to rebel, break away
“breaking away” in this verse is pāšōaʿ. The root פָּשַׁע (pāšaʿ, “rebel or break away”) gives “transgressing” a relational edge. The verse traces that break into withdrawal, oppressive speech, and false words.
ALSO GROWS
pāšaʿ: to rebel; to break away
פָּשַׁע
The verb shows the rupture that begins the sequence described in the verse.
pešaʿ: rebellion; breaking away
פֶּשַׁע
The related noun preserves the sense of a break in allegiance beneath the English “transgression.”
THE PATTERN
What the heart carries becomes speech, and speech gives inward falsehood an outward reach.
Twistings are in his heart; he plows evil at all times; he sends out strife.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.THE THREAD
None calls out for alignment, and none judges with firmness. Leaning their full weight upon the emptiness, they speak lies; they conceive toil and bring forth crookedness.Both verses use הָרָה (hārāh, “to conceive”) for what forms inwardly before it is spoken. Isaiah 59:4 places conception beside speaking lies and bringing forth iniquity, repeating the movement from what is carried within to what comes into the open.
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