What Does Isaiah 66:13 Mean?
As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.
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
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats one root for God’s comforting and your being comforted, making consolation a movement of presence that carries you toward wholeness.
THE MEANING
You are met with tenderness as close as a mother’s comfort. God’s care reaches you in the place of wholeness, and the promise includes both the one who comforts and your receiving comfort.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that comfort is something you must produce alone or that divine care stays distant from your distress; the verse presents care as near and received.
THE ROOT
נָחַם
nāḥam
GROWS FROM
נחם
n-ḥ-m
To comfort or console; in another verbal form, to relent or be moved to pity.
“comforts” in this verse is nāḥam. The same root appears in the mother’s comforting, God’s promise to comfort, and your being comforted. Hebrew holds the giving and receiving within one word-family, making consolation a shared movement of presence.
ALSO GROWS
neḥāmāh: consolation
נֶחָמָה
This noun names the comfort itself, showing that the verse’s action can also be received as a state of consolation.
menaḥēm: one who comforts
מְנַחֵם
The word names the comforter, echoing the verse’s picture of care as a presence that stays close.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete.
Yerushalayim carries the שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) root and the dual ending -ayim. Comfort finds you in the place of wholeness, so Jerusalem speaks as more than a location: it is where the promise of being comforted comes to rest.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch makes the promise’s destination resonate with a state of restored wholeness.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the root’s sense of completeness, illuminating comfort as care that restores rather than merely reassures.
THE PATTERN
Comfort is received as intimate care, then becomes a way wholeness is shared.
Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she would not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even they may forget, but I will not forget you.Surely I level and hush my living soul, like a weaned child upon his mother; like one weaned upon me, my living soul.Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.THE THREAD
For the LORD will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her dry ruins, and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert plain like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving, and the voice of song.The Hebrew נָחַם (nāḥam, to comfort or console) appears here again. In this verse, that same comfort reaches Zion’s waste places and turns wilderness into a garden, opening the image of intimate care into a wider restoration of wholeness.
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