What Does Isaiah 66:5 Mean?
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, you who tremble at his word. Your brothers who hate you, who drive you out for the sake of my nature, have said, "Let the LORD be given weight." But he will be seen to your joy, and they will be ashamed.
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
Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.THE KEY
The ones saying “Let the LORD be glorified” invoke his weight, but the verse reveals that weight by appearing as joy to the people they cast out.
THE MEANING
You hear the LORD’s word and tremble toward it; even when your own brothers reject and expel you for bearing his name, his nature, their verdict does not decide what his presence means. He appears to you as joy, while those who cast you out are put to shame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that rejection by religious kin proves the LORD has rejected you is undone: the verse places joy with the one cast out and shame with the accusers.
THE ROOT
יִכְבַּד
yikkabad
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to be honored.
The phrase carries the sense of the LORD being given weight, not only receiving praise. Those who say the words cannot control how that weight appears: he becomes joy to the excluded, while they are ashamed.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
The root makes the claim that the LORD be “glorified” a claim about his weight and presence.
kavod: Weight, honor, glory.
כָּבוֹד
This is the familiar word for glory, holding honor and weight together.
kibbed: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
It shows that giving honor means recognizing weight, which the verse’s outcome reveals more clearly than the brothers’ words do.
הַחֲרֵדִים
haḥaredim
GROWS FROM
חרד
ḥ-r-d
To tremble, quake, or be shaken with alarm.
“tremble” in this verse is haḥaredim. The verse identifies the hearers by their bodily response to the LORD’s word. Their trembling is not incidental fear; it marks a deep responsiveness that stands in contrast to the brothers’ outwardly pious words.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārad: To tremble or be alarmed.
חָרַד
This verb names the shaking response expressed in the verse.
ḥărādāh: Trembling, terror, or dread.
חֲרָדָה
The noun gives the inner force of the response the verse calls attention to.
ḥārēḏ: One who trembles.
חָרֵד
The word describes the hearers as people marked by their response to the word.
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; speech or a matter spoken.
The “word” is also a spoken matter, not merely a slogan detached from life. The people tremble toward this utterance, while the verse exposes the gap between hearing it and using pious words to cast others out.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: To speak.
דִּבֵּר
The verb keeps the word connected to a living act of speaking.
dāḇār: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The noun carries speech and the matter spoken within the same word family.
THE PATTERN
Rejection for bearing the divine name does not settle the matter; divine regard can turn the rejected person’s shame into joy.
Princes pursue me for nothing, but my heart trembles at your word.Flourishing are you when people hate you, and when they mark you off from their company, and reproach you, and throw your name out as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.If you are reviled in the nature of the Anointed One, flourishing are you, for the breath of weight and of God rests upon you. On their side he is spoken against, but on your side he is given weight.THE THREAD
For all these things my hand has made, and all of them have come to be, says the LORD. But toward this one I will gaze, toward the one who is bowed low and struck in breath, who trembles at my word.The same Hebrew root for “tremble” appears just three verses earlier: the LORD looks toward the one who trembles at his word. Here those same hearers are cast out, then receive his appearing as joy; the shared root links their response to the word with the LORD’s regard.
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