What Does Isaiah 65:14 Mean?
Behold, my servants will ring out from the goodness of heart, but you will cry out from the ache of heart, and you will howl from a breaking of breath.
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
Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.THE KEY
The verse shows the heart’s fullness or fracture breaking into sound: song, cry, or howl.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with two voices: singing from a heart’s good, and crying and howling from pain of heart and broken breath. It keeps both sounds stark and distinct.
THE ROOT
מִשֶּׁבֶר
mishever
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter.
“a breaking of breath” in this verse is mishever. מִשֶּׁבֶר (mishever, from breaking) carries an image of fracture beneath “vexation”: the breath itself is broken, and the howl is its audible form. The שבר (shavar, break) root holds the act of shattering and the state of being shattered together.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
It names the breaking that gives the verse’s anguish its force.
nishbar: Broken or shattered.
נִשְׁבָּר
It shows the result of breaking: a state of rupture, as in the verse’s breaking of breath.
יָרֹנּוּ
yaronnu
GROWS FROM
רנן
ranan
To ring out in a cry or song.
The verb רָנַן (ranan, ring out in song) carries the joyful cry within the act of singing itself. Its ringing sound answers the howl later in the verse: different inner conditions take voice.
ALSO GROWS
rinnah: A ringing cry or song of joy.
רִנָּה
It makes clear that the singing is an audible outpouring, not merely a quiet feeling.
merannen: Singing or rejoicing aloud.
מְרַנֵּן
It keeps the root’s sense of joy expressed in sound.
מִכְּאֵב
mikke'ev
GROWS FROM
כאב
ka'av
To feel pain or ache.
“cry out from the ache of heart” in this verse is mikke'ev. מִכְּאֵב (mikke’ev, from pain) places the sorrow in the heart’s ache rather than naming an abstract mood. Set beside “good of heart,” it shows two inner conditions as sources of the voices that follow.
ALSO GROWS
ka'av: To feel pain or suffer.
כָּאַב
It reveals the pain beneath the verse’s crying.
makh'ov: Pain, grief, or affliction.
מַכְאוֹב
It shows how the root can name the ache itself, not only the experience of hurting.
THE PATTERN
What fills the heart enters the voice or outward expression: gladness sings, while sorrow breaks through.
A glad heart makes the face good, but by the pain of the heart the breath is crushed.Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with a ringing cry. Then they said among the nations, The LORD has grown great in doing with these.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.THE THREAD
The slaughtered offerings of God are a broken breath; a broken and crushed heart, O God, you do not despise.Isaiah names the howl as arising from מִשֶּׁבֶר (mishever, from breaking), from שבר (shavar, to break); Psalm 51 uses the same root for “broken.” The shared root reveals rupture in both verses, while Isaiah voices it in anguish and the psalm says a broken heart is not despised.
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