What Does Isaiah 8:10 Mean?
Take counsel together, and it shall be broken; speak the word, and it shall not stand, for God is with us.
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
Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.THE KEY
The spoken threat cannot establish itself against the reality named at the close: עִמָּנוּ אֵל (ʿimmanu ʾel, “God with us”).
THE MEANING
Plans can gather and words can be spoken against you, yet speech does not make a threat inevitable. The closing claim, עִמָּנוּ אֵל (ʿimmanu ʾel, “God with us”), names the present reality of God with you as hostile plans fail to take shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a threat is already destiny because it has been carefully planned and declared dissolves here: it can still come to nothing and fail to stand.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak, declare; the related noun carries the sense of a word or matter.
The verb “speak” and the noun “word” share the same three consonants here: the act of speaking and what is spoken grow from one root. The verse then asks whether that spoken word can actually stand.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken plan in the verse comes from the same root as the word it declares.
divrei: Words of; matters of.
דִּבְרֵי
This form keeps speech and matters together, echoing how a spoken plan claims to shape what happens.
יָקוּם
yaqum
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, or be established.
The plan’s failure is expressed as an inability to rise into established reality. This root also gives Hebrew its word for a place, as though a place is where something can stand.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
The root form makes clear that standing is a rising into presence.
maqom: Place; location.
מָקוֹם
A place is connected to what stands or is established there, sharpening the verse’s question of what can truly take its place.
עֵצָה
etsah
GROWS FROM
יעץ
y-ʿ-ṣ
Advise, plan, or counsel.
The counsel here is not merely discussion; it is a devised plan intended to shape events. Its root also names the one who advises, linking the plan to the voice that forms it.
ALSO GROWS
yoʿets: Counselor; adviser.
יוֹעֵץ
The branch points to the one forming the plan that the verse says will come to nothing.
yaʿats: To advise; to plan.
יָעַץ
The verb returns counsel to its action: devising a course that still cannot guarantee its own outcome.
THE PATTERN
Plans formed against what God establishes cannot secure their own outcome.
The LORD breaks the counsel of nations; he undoes the plans of peoples.For the LORD of hosts has counseled, and who will break it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?But if it is of God, you cannot undo them, lest perhaps you be found even fighting against God.THE THREAD
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Look, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.Isaiah 8:10 closes with עִמָּנוּ אֵל (ʿimmanu ʾel, “God with us”), the very nature carried by the name Immanuel in Isaiah 7:14. The name gives the verse’s closing claim its shape: God’s presence is with you even while hostile plans are being spoken.
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