What Does Isaiah 6:3 Mean?
And one called out to another, and said, Set apart, set apart, set apart is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his weight.
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
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.THE KEY
The One who is utterly set apart is also the weight filling the whole earth.
THE MEANING
The One set apart from everything is present throughout the earth, which is full of his weight. Holiness and nearness meet here: the One unlike all else fills the ground beneath you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God’s set-apartness means distance from the world: the whole earth is full of his presence and weight.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy; to carry weight.
The word translated “glory” also carries the sense of weight. The earth is not merely lit by divine splendor; it is full of the weight of the One who is set apart.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the verse’s fullness tangible: the earth bears the weight of God’s presence.
kibbed: To honor; to treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor gives weight its relational sense: what fills the earth is also worthy of regard.
קָדוֹשׁ
qadosh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart; to mark as distinct.
“set apart” in this verse is qadosh. The threefold cry names God’s complete distinctness, then declares that the whole earth is full of his weight. Set-apartness here does not mean remoteness: the One unlike all else fills the world.
ALSO GROWS
qadash: To set apart; to become set apart.
קָדַשׁ
The verb shows holiness as the state of being distinct, the nature named by the repeated cry.
miqdash: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch connects set-apartness with place, while the verse locates God’s weight throughout the whole earth.
THE PATTERN
The created world bears witness to the presence and weight of its Maker.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens recount the weight of God; and the expanse sets forth the work of his hands.For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the weight of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.For the unseen things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, grasped through the things made, his ageless power and divinity, so that they stand without a word in their defense.THE THREAD
And the weight of the LORD is uncovered, and all flesh sees it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.The same word כָּבוֹד (kavod, weight or glory) appears here: the LORD’s weight is revealed and seen by all flesh. Isaiah 6:3 names what fills the earth; Isaiah 40:5 describes its becoming visible.
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