What Does Isaiah 6:13 Mean?
But yet a tenth will be in it, and it will turn back and be burned, as a terebinth and as an oak, whose stump stands in them when they cast their leaves; a set-apart seed is its stump.
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 yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.THE KEY
The holy seed is the stump itself: what remains standing after even the remnant is burned.
THE MEANING
The passage holds devastation and survival together: even the tenth is burned, and what remains is like the stump of a felled tree. The holy seed is the standing core left after the visible life has been stripped away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that life must remain whole to remain alive; here, the seed remains as a stump after the tree is cut down.
THE ROOT
מַצֶּבֶת
matstsevet
GROWS FROM
נצב
n-ts-b
To stand, be stationed, or take one’s stand.
The word rendered “substance” pictures a stump still standing after the tree is felled. The holy seed is not merely something stored inside the remnant; it is the standing remnant itself.
ALSO GROWS
nitzav: Standing, stationed; “settled” in Psalm 119:89.
נִצָּב
The same root describes what remains in place when the tree has been cut down.
matstsebah: A standing stone or pillar.
מַצֵּבָה
Like the stump, it names something set upright that remains as a marker after what surrounded it has changed.
THE PATTERN
Life can remain in the core of what has been cut down and emerge as new growth.
And a shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse, and a sprout from his roots will bear fruit.For there is a cord for a tree; if it is cut down, it sprouts again, and its suckling shoot does not stop.Truly, truly, I say to you. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.THE THREAD
For the ages, LORD, your word is set in the heavens.The Hebrew word rendered “settled” comes from the same root, נצב (n-ts-b), as the stump rendered “substance” here. In Isaiah, the tree’s stump stands after the cutting; in the psalm, the word stands in heaven.
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