What Does Isaiah 7:25 Mean?
And all the hills that are dug with the mattock, the fear of briers and thorns shall not come there, but they shall be for the sending of oxen, and for the trampling of 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 on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.THE KEY
A hill once opened by human digging becomes ground people avoid, with animals sent into the space cultivation leaves behind.
THE MEANING
The cultivated hillside is now so rough with briers and thorns that people avoid it; oxen and lesser livestock are sent there to graze and trample. The land’s use has narrowed from cultivation to rough pasture.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁלַח
mishlaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send, send away, send forth; release something outward.
The word for the animals’ “sending forth” comes from שָׁלַח (šālaḥ), “send forth, send away.” The hillside is described as space into which animals are released after human cultivation has given way; the word carries movement outward, not simply the animals’ presence.
ALSO GROWS
mishlaḥ: Sending forth; a dispatch or release.
מִשְׁלַח
This is the form used in the verse: the hill becomes ground onto which animals are sent.
šālaḥ: To send, send away, or send forth.
שָׁלַח
The root verb makes the change active: the animals are sent out into the land that people avoid.
Shiloach: Shiloach; “Sent,” associated with the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
This branch carries the same sense of being sent outward, which also appears in the sent waters connected with restored sight in John 9:7.
THE PATTERN
When cultivation is withdrawn, thorn growth marks a change in what the land can be used for.
I will set it as a waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but briers and thorns shall come up. I will also command the clouds to drop no rain upon it.But what bears thorns and thistles fails the test, and is near a curse; its end is the burning.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.Isaiah’s מִשְׁלַח (mishlaḥ), “sending forth,” comes from שָׁלַח (šālaḥ), “send forth.” John identifies Σιλωάμ (Silōám), “Siloam,” as “Sent”; the shared word-family links animals sent onto open land with the sent waters where sight returns.
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