What Does Isaiah 7:3 Mean?
Then the LORD said to Isaiah, Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and Shearjashub your son, at the end of the channel of the upper pool, on the raised road of the cloth treader's field.
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
Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;THE KEY
The son’s name says “a remnant will return,” placing that promise beside the water and washing of the fuller’s field.
THE MEANING
You arrive at a water channel beside a place of washing, where Ahaz meets a child whose name says, “a remnant will return.” What remains carries the promise of return within its name, held here beside flowing water and cleansing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what survives only as a remnant is already lost gives way to the name’s promise: the remnant returns.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yashuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back; return.
The name combines שְׁאָר (she’ar, remnant) with יָשׁוּב (yashuv, will return): what remains is named together with its return. The verse places that name beside a water channel and a field defined by washing.
ALSO GROWS
yashuv: Will return.
יָשׁוּב
This is the verb carried in Shear-jashub’s name, turning the child’s name into a statement about what remains.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun shares the root’s movement of turning back, making return a change of direction as well as a restoration.
אָחָז
Ahaz
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾaḥaz
Grasp; seize; hold.
Ahaz’s name carries the sense of grasping or holding. Beside the name of the returning remnant, it places holding and return in the same encounter.
ALSO GROWS
ne’eḥaz: Caught; held fast.
נֶאֱחַז
The ram in Genesis 22:13 is caught in a thicket; the form shows the root’s sense of being held.
ʾaḥuzzah: Holding; possession.
אֲחֻזָּה
This form names a holding or possession, extending the root’s sense of what is grasped and kept.
כּוֹבֵס
koves
GROWS FROM
כבס
kabas
Wash; launder, especially clothing.
“cloth treader” in this verse is koves. The fuller is named by the work of washing cloth. Set beside the channel, the location gives the promise of return an image of cleansing that removes soil while the cloth remains.
ALSO GROWS
kābas: To wash or launder.
כָּבַס
This is the verb behind the fuller’s occupation, making washing part of the place’s name.
kibbus: Washing; laundry.
כִּבּוּס
This noun carries the same root into the act of washing that defines the field’s setting.
THE PATTERN
What remains can carry continuity forward and become the beginning of return.
The remnant will turn back, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God."Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not knelt to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him."So also now, in this present season, there is a remnant left behind, picked out by favor.THE THREAD
The remnant will turn back, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.“The remnant shall return” is the full phrase carried in the son’s name: שְׁאָר (she’ar, remnant) joined with יָשׁוּב (yashuv, will return). Isaiah 7:3 places that promise in a person at the water channel, so return is already present in the name.
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