What Does Isaiah 65:6 Mean?
Behold, it is written before me. I will not hush, but I will repay, and I will repay into their bosom.
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, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom,THE KEY
The doubled “recompense” comes from a root of completion: what is written before God is not left unfinished but reaches the bosom of those addressed.
THE MEANING
This verse presents God as seeing what is written and answering with recompense. The repeated word gives that answer an emphatic force: what is done is not left unaddressed, but comes close, into the bosom of those addressed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that silence means nothing has been seen, or that what is done disappears without an answer.
THE ROOT
שִׁלַּמְתִּי
shillamti
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
To be complete or make good; in this form, to repay or recompense.
The verse repeats shillamti, “I will repay,” giving the line a sense of settled, emphatic return. The root also carries the language of wholeness, so recompense here is what brings a matter to its completion.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, completeness
שָׁלוֹם
It shares the root’s sense of a matter brought to completion, adding depth to the force of “recompense.”
shillem: To repay, make good, or recompense
שִׁלֵּם
This closely related form makes the root link explicit: what is due is returned.
כְּתוּבָה
ketuvah
GROWS FROM
כתב
To write or inscribe.
“Written before me” presents the matter as inscribed in God’s sight. The root’s branches connect that writing with a written record, giving the verse’s refusal to keep silence the force of an answer to something already set down.
ALSO GROWS
katav: To write or inscribe
כָּתַב
The verb names the act behind what stands written before God.
mikhtav: A written message or letter
מִכְתָּב
It shows how the root extends from the act of writing to what writing leaves behind.
THE PATTERN
What is done remains before God and is brought into judgment and recompense.
For God brings every making into judgment, upon every hidden thing, whether good or harm.Who will give back to each one according to his works.Look, I come swiftly, and my wages are with me, to give back to each one as his work will be.THE THREAD
And yours, O Lord, is faithful love, for you repay each man according to his deed.“Renderest” translates a form of the same Hebrew root, שׁלם (shalam), as Isaiah’s “recompense.” The shared root joins repayment with the sense of making good what is due.
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