What Does Isaiah 63:3 Mean?
I have trodden the winepress alone, and none of the people was with me. For I will tread them in the burning of my anger, and trample them in my heat. Their blood will be spattered on my garments, and I will soil all my clothing.
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
I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.THE KEY
The Hebrew root of “trodden” also gives the word for “way”: the path of this judgment is made by the solitary tread that leaves blood on the garments.
THE MEANING
The speaker’s judgment is not distant or bloodless: the one who treads alone tramples in anger, and the crushed people’s blood spatters the garments. The stain makes the violence visible; nothing in the image conceals it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Judgment is clean and abstract, leaving no mark on the one who carries it out. The verse gives it blood and stained clothing.
THE ROOT
דָּרַכְתִּי
dāraktî
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread, step, or press underfoot.
“trodden” in this verse is dāraktî. The root דרך (d-r-k) carries both the act of treading and, in דֶּרֶךְ, the word for a way or path. Here the path of judgment is not abstract: it is made by the solitary tread, and its violence remains visible on the garments.
ALSO GROWS
déreḵ: Way, path, or road.
דֶּרֶךְ
The same root joins a step to a way; the treading in this verse becomes the course by which judgment advances.
dōrēḵ: One who treads or presses.
דֹּרֵךְ
Isaiah uses this form for the winepress treader in the preceding verse, linking the figure seen there to the first-person action here.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, wine or blood on clothing makes the force of crushing visible.
Binding his foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the red vine. He trod his garments in wine, and his cloak in the blood of grapes.And he is wrapped in a garment dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.THE THREAD
Why is your robe red, and your garments like one who treads in the winepress?The word behind “treadeth” in verse 2 and “trodden” in verse 3 shares the Hebrew root דרך (d-r-k), meaning to tread or press underfoot. Verse 2 asks why the clothing is red; verse 3 answers with the solitary treading that leaves it stained.
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