What Does Isaiah 66:21 Mean?
And from them I will also take hold for priests and for Levites, says 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 I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The Levites’ name echoes joining, so this return does more than restore a people to place: it joins some from their midst to sacred service.
THE MEANING
When you are brought near, the movement does not end at arrival: this verse pictures priestly and Levite service emerging from within the gathered people. Levi’s name echoes joining, so restoration includes being joined to a shared work of worship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that displacement leaves a people permanently outside worship’s life: those gathered from far places can be drawn into its service.
THE ROOT
לַלְוִיִּם
la-Leviyyim
GROWS FROM
לוה
To join, attach, or accompany.
“Levites” is the tribal name Levi in a priestly role, and Genesis links Levi’s name to לָוָה (lavah), “to join.” Isaiah uses the same root for someone joining himself to the LORD; here, the name carries a resonance of joining people into sacred service.
ALSO GROWS
lavah: To join or attach.
לָוָה
Leah says her husband will be joined to her, and names her son Levi (Genesis 29:34); the connection gives “Levites” an echo of joining.
nilvah: Joined himself; attached himself.
נִלְוָה
Isaiah 56:3 uses this form for a foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD, echoing the movement from gathering into belonging.
THE PATTERN
Gathering people near to God forms a people whose belonging includes shared worship and service.
And you shall be to me a governance of priests and a set-apart nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.Them also will I bring to my set-apart mountain, and gladden them in my house of prayer. Their ascending offerings and their sacrifices shall be received with favor upon my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.Levi’s name is linked to לָוָה (lavah, “to join”), the same root echoed in “Levites” here. Isaiah’s wording gives the gathering a further movement: some among the people are joined into priestly service.
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