What Does Isaiah 65:17 Mean?
For behold, I have created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they rise upon the heart.
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
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.THE KEY
The newness is so complete that the former things no longer even rise into the heart.
THE MEANING
God is creating a whole new field of life, and what came before loses its place as the heart’s measure of what is possible. The promise reaches into the reader’s present: the former does not have to keep returning as the frame for what comes next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What has been must remain the heart’s permanent frame for what can come next.
THE ROOT
חֲדָשִׁים
ḥadashim
GROWS FROM
חדש
New, fresh; in a verb form, to renew.
The root חדש also gives חֹדֶשׁ (chodesh, month or new moon) and חִדֵּשׁ (chiddesh, renew). Newness here carries the sense of renewal and fresh emergence: the heavens and earth are made new, and the former loses its return to the heart.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: New, fresh.
חָדָשׁ
This is the root’s basic sense, naming the quality of the new heavens and earth.
chodesh: Month; the new moon.
חֹדֶשׁ
The word carries newness into a recurring cycle, where the moon appears fresh again.
chiddesh: To renew or make fresh again.
חִדֵּשׁ
This branch shows that newness can mean renewal, not merely a different label for what was already there.
זָכַר
zakar
GROWS FROM
זכר
To remember, recall, or bring to mind.
“will not be remembered” in this verse is zakar. The verse pairs not being remembered with not rising upon the heart. Remembering here is more than keeping a fact in storage: the former no longer comes forward as the heart’s active reference.
ALSO GROWS
zakar: To remember or recall.
זָכַר
This is the root of the verse’s word for the former things no longer being remembered.
zikkaron: A memorial or remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch connects remembering with what is held in view as a lasting reference.
hizkir: To mention or cause something to be remembered.
הִזְכִּיר
This branch shows memory moving into speech and attention, which the verse says the former no longer commands.
THE PATTERN
When God makes new, the former loses its claim to define what follows.
Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.And I perceive a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have gone away, and there is no more sea.THE THREAD
Behold, I am making a new thing; now it sprouts; will you not perceive it? I will even lay a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the parched land.Isaiah uses the same root חדש (chadash, new) for the “new thing” and the “new heavens” and “new earth.” Here that newness springs up in a wilderness, showing renewal beginning even where the heart sees no way.
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