What Does Isaiah 60:20 Mean?
Your sun shall no more go in, and your moon shall not gather itself in; for the LORD shall be your light of the ages, and the days of your mourning shall be made whole.
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
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.THE KEY
The verse’s final word for mourning is completion from the same root that gives Hebrew its word for wholeness.
THE MEANING
Your light does not depend on the sun rising or the moon remaining visible; the LORD is named as light through the ages. Your mourning is not minimized: its days are real, and the verse says they reach completion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The grief I carry now must remain unfinished and define my life forever.
THE ROOT
שָׁלְמוּ
shalmu
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be complete or whole.
“made whole” in this verse is shalmu. Hebrew says the days of mourning “shall be completed” with שָׁלְמוּ (shalmu), from שלם (sh-l-m), the root that also gives shalom (שָׁלוֹם), wholeness. The ending of grief therefore carries the shape of wholeness, not merely the absence of sorrow.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
Psalm 29:11 uses this word for what the LORD gives; it connects mourning’s completion with wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch echoes the verse’s claim that mourning’s days reach their completion.
shillem: Repay, make good.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch carries the sense of making something complete, deepening the verse’s image of what has been lacking being made whole.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s light outlasts created cycles, and grief does not have the final word.
For the burning of his anger lasts a moment, and in his favor is life. Weeping may lodge in the evening, but a ringing cry of joy comes in the morning.He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe tears from all faces, and he will remove the taunt of his people from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the weight of God lights it, and the Lamb is its lamp.THE THREAD
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with wholeness.The Hebrew word translated “peace” is שָׁלוֹם (shalom), from the same root as שָׁלְמוּ (shalmu), “shall be completed,” in Isaiah. The shared root links mourning’s completion with the wholeness the LORD gives.
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