What Does Isaiah 66:20 Mean?
And they will bring all your brothers from all nations as a gift to the LORD, on horses and in chariots, in litters, on mules, and on swift beasts, to my set-apart mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, as the sons of Israel bring a gift in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.
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 they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “bring” means to cause to come in: the nations carry your scattered kin into the LORD’s presence, and their arrival is itself called an offering.
THE MEANING
Your kin are gathered from every nation, by many routes, toward the LORD’s mountain. Their coming is described as an offering, like one carried in a clean vessel into the LORD’s house. Jerusalem is the destination of this movement toward wholeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that distance or foreignness puts your kin beyond the LORD’s presence: the verse pictures them gathered from every nation and brought near.
THE ROOT
וְהֵבִיאוּ
vehēviʾu
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come or enter; in the causative form, to cause someone to come in or bring them.
The verb for “bring” grows from בוא (bo, come or enter): it frames this as making a way for people to arrive in the LORD’s presence. The people themselves, not only something carried alongside them, are named as the offering.
ALSO GROWS
hēvi: Bring in; cause to come.
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes the movement into the LORD’s presence part of the verse’s central image.
māvo: Entrance; entryway.
מָבוֹא
The same root can name an entrance, echoing the movement from the nations into the house of the LORD.
קָדְשִׁי
qodshi
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart; to make sacred.
“set-apart mountain” in this verse is qodshi. The mountain is called set apart, while the LORD’s house is the destination of the offering; the root links the place and the act of presentation through sacred purpose. What is brought from the nations enters a space marked as belonging to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Set-apartness; sacredness.
קֹדֶשׁ
It names the quality carried by the “holy mountain” in this verse.
miqdash: Sanctuary; set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch connects the mountain’s set-apart character with the house where the offering is brought.
טָהוֹר
tahor
GROWS FROM
טהר
ṭ-h-r
To be clean or pure.
The root holds both a state of cleanness and the process of making clean. Here the vessel is a clean carrier for the offering, so the verse presents the gathered people within an image of prepared, fitting presentation.
ALSO GROWS
tahorah: Purity; cleanness.
טָהֳרָה
This noun names the state that the vessel embodies in the verse’s image.
tiher: Cleanse; purify.
טִהֵר
This verb shows the same root as an action, alongside the clean vessel’s state.
THE PATTERN
People scattered across boundaries are gathered and presented in the LORD’s presence as an offering.
Lift your eyes all around and see. All of them are gathered and come to you. Your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side.For from the rising of the sun to where it goes in, my name is great among the nations. And in every place incense is made to smoke, and a clean gift is brought near to my name, for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.That I should be a worker of Jesus, the Anointed One, among the nations, doing the sacred work of the good news of God, so that the drawing near of the nations might be well received, having been set apart in the Set-Apart Breath.THE THREAD
Lift your eyes all around and see. All of them are gathered and come to you. Your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side.Isaiah 60:4 uses בוא (bo, come or enter) in “they come to thee,” the same root behind “they shall bring” here. The shared root ties the gathering of kin from far away to their arrival in the LORD’s presence.
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