What Does Isaiah 7:21 Mean?
And it shall be in that day, that a man shall keep alive a young cow and two sheep.
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 it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep;THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “nourish” means “keep alive,” so even in a narrowed world the verse centers what remains alive.
THE MEANING
You are shown a narrowed household: one young cow and two sheep are what a person keeps alive. The verb reaches beyond feeding to making live, placing the verse’s weight on life continuing through what remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that only abundance can sustain life loosens here: the verse gives its attention to one cow and two sheep, and to their continued life.
THE ROOT
יְחַיֶּה
yechayyeh
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
Live; cause to live, keep alive.
“keep alive” in this verse is yechayyeh. The verb translated “nourish” grows from the root for life: the image is not merely food being given, but life being kept going. English separates feeding from living, while this Hebrew verb holds the sustaining act and its result together.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Alive; living.
חַי
This familiar branch names the state the man’s care preserves: the animals remain alive.
chayyim: Life; living existence.
חַיִּים
The same root makes the small herd part of a larger image of life continuing, even when the household has contracted.
THE PATTERN
Life continues through what remains when abundance has contracted.
For thus says the LORD God of Israel, the jar of meal shall not run out, nor shall the flask of oil run short, until the day the LORD sends rain upon the ground.There is a lad here, who has five barley loaves, and two small fishes, but what are they among so many?THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.Isaiah’s verb for keeping the animals alive and Deuteronomy’s verb for a person living both grow from חיה (ḥ-y-h), “live.” The shared root joins the life sustained in a small household to the life sustained beyond bread.
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