What Does Isaiah 65:19 Mean?
And I will spin in Jerusalem and leap in my people, and the voice of weeping will no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
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 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.THE KEY
The city named for wholeness is marked by a changed sound: God delights in his people, and weeping is no longer heard there.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to your present with a promised future: God rejoices in Jerusalem and takes joy in his people, and the voices of weeping and crying will no longer be heard there. Grief is real, but it is not the final sound of the place where wholeness holds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that grief is the truest thing God hears about you: the verse centers his joy in his people and promises that sorrow’s voice will no longer define their home.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
Jerusalem carries shalom, wholeness, in its name. Here that wholeness takes a concrete shape: God delights in his people, and the voice of sorrow is no longer heard in the city.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
The city’s name and the promise of a place where grief no longer speaks share this language of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
It gives the name’s wholeness a sense of completeness: sorrow’s voice is no longer the defining sound.
יִשָּׁמַע
yishama
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, or heed.
The verse describes grief as a voice that is no longer heard in this place. The Hebrew root can also carry the sense of hearing and responding, but here the sound itself has no more place in Jerusalem.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond
שְׁמַע
The familiar call to hear and respond makes the verse’s change vivid: the cries that once called for response are no longer heard.
shemuah: A report or piece of news
שְׁמוּעָה
A report is something received by hearing; here, the news carried by weeping and crying no longer fills the city.
וְגַלְתִּי
vegalti
GROWS FROM
גיל
g-y-l
To rejoice or exult.
“I will spin” in this verse is vegalti. God’s rejoicing over Jerusalem and his people stands alongside the silence of weeping. This root also links the verse’s joy to a person’s own rejoicing in God, making joy a shared relation rather than a private feeling.
ALSO GROWS
gil: Rejoicing or exulting
גִּיל
This is the root behind God’s declared rejoicing in the verse.
gilah: Rejoicing
גִּילָה
The related noun keeps the same root of exulting, echoing the joy that marks the promised city.
THE PATTERN
God’s restoring work carries grief toward an end and opens a place for joy.
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.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.And God wipes away every tear from their eyes, and there is no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the first things have gone away.THE THREAD
And my living soul leaps in the LORD; it rejoices in his deliverance.The Hebrew behind “shall be joyful” comes from the same גיל root as Isaiah’s “I will rejoice.” Psalm 35 places that exulting in the LORD; Isaiah places it in God’s joy over his people, joining the two in shared rejoicing.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us