What Does Isaiah 65:2 Mean?
I spread my hands all the day to a people that turns its shoulder and walks in a way that is not good, after their own plans.
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 spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;THE KEY
God’s hands stay spread toward a rebellious people all day, while their feet keep following plans of their own making.
THE MEANING
God’s hands remain spread toward you through the whole day, even while you follow a way shaped by your own thoughts and not good. The open reach and the wrong direction remain side by side; neither erases the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your rebellion makes the reach stop: the hands are spread out all day, even toward a rebellious people.
THE ROOT
וָאֶפְרֹשׂ יָדַי
va’efros yaday
GROWS FROM
פרשׂ
p-r-ś
Spread out, extend.
“spread” in this verse is va’efros yaday. The verb names an extended posture that remains in place all day. The verse sets that continuing reach against the people’s continuing choice to follow their own thoughts.
ALSO GROWS
pāras: Spread out or extend.
פָּרַשׂ
The same verb family carries the basic image of something opened across a space.
mifrās: Sail.
מִפְרָשׂ
A sail is a surface spread open to catch the wind, extending the root’s image of openness.
מַחְשְׁבֹתֵיהֶם
maḥshevōtehem
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-š-b
Think, devise, reckon; form a plan.
The word rendered thoughts belongs to the family of devising and reckoning: these are plans by which the people calculate their course, not merely passing notions. Their steps follow what they have worked out for themselves, even as God’s hands remain extended.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāshav: Think, devise, reckon.
חָשַׁב
This verb names the act of forming or calculating an intention that can direct a person’s course.
ḥeshbōn: Account, reckoning.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This related word shows the root’s connection to working something out or counting it up.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
Tread, step; a route made by treading.
The Hebrew word for way belongs to the same family as the verb for treading. The people are not merely holding a wrong idea; they are repeatedly walking a route that their own plans have set before them.
ALSO GROWS
dāraḵ: Tread, step.
דָּרַךְ
The verb makes the physical action inside the word for way visible: a path is where feet tread.
midrāḵ: Footing, a place to tread.
מִדְרָךְ
This related word keeps the image concrete: the way is a place made familiar by repeated steps.
THE PATTERN
The divine call remains extended even when people refuse it.
Because I call out and you refuse; I stretch out my hand, and no one bends an ear.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!But to Israel he says, All day long I have spread out my hands to a people who will not yield and who answer back.THE THREAD
When you spread your palms, I will shut my eyes to you. Even when you multiply your prayers, I will not hear and respond. Your hands are filled with blood.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew verb פרשׂ (pāras, “spread out”) for hands extended toward God. Here God’s hands reach toward people; there, the people’s own hands are bloodied. The repeated gesture opens a sharp distinction between an extended reach and hands whose actions contradict it.
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