What Does Isaiah 8:13 Mean?
Set apart the LORD of hosts himself, and let him be your awe; let him be your trembling.
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
Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.THE KEY
The verse gathers fear from the crowd’s threats and directs it toward the One set apart above every power.
THE MEANING
The LORD stands apart from every power pressing on the reader, and the verse places awe and dread in relation to him. When a surrounding threat is claiming the reader’s fear, this word speaks now by placing that fear under the LORD’s authority. The danger remains in view while the LORD is named as ultimate.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A threat’s ability to frighten you does not make it ultimate. The verse breaks the belief that public alarm has the right to define whom you fear.
THE ROOT
מוֹרַאֲכֶם
mora’akhem
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
To fear, revere, or stand in awe; when directed toward God, the word carries the sense of awe.
“awe” in this verse is mora’akhem. The fear here belongs to the same Hebrew root used in the warning one verse earlier not to fear the people’s fear. The passage turns that same fear-language toward the LORD, changing whose authority defines it.
ALSO GROWS
yare: To fear or stand in awe
יָרֵא
This verb appears in Isaiah 8:12, linking the public fear there directly to the fear named here.
yir’ah: Fear or awe
יִרְאָה
This noun shows the same root can name an abiding orientation, not only a moment of alarm.
תַּקְדִּישׁוּ
taqdîshû
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To be set apart, sacred; to regard as belonging to the sacred.
To sanctify the LORD is to recognize him as the one set apart from every power pressing on the reader. The verse joins that recognition to awe and dread, making his distinct authority the center of the passage.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; sacred
קָדוֹשׁ
The shared root shows that sanctifying the LORD is recognizing the quality named by qadosh.
miqdash: Sanctuary
מִקְדָּשׁ
A sanctuary is a place set apart; the branch makes the root’s distinctness concrete.
מַעֲרִצְכֶם
maʿărîṣkhem
GROWS FROM
ערץ
ʿ-r-ṣ
To tremble in dread or to cause terror.
Dread carries the force of terror, not a mild reverence. This root can describe both trembling and the power that terrifies, so the verse gives the LORD the full place of dread while the surrounding threat remains real.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāraṣ: To tremble in dread or terrify
עָרַץ
The verb holds both the felt terror and the force that produces it, preserving the severity of the verse.
ʿārîṣ: Ruthless, fierce; a tyrant
עָרִיץ
This related form can describe a terrifying power, echoing the verse’s concern with who holds authority over fear.
THE PATTERN
The verse places human threats beneath the LORD’s authority, relocating fear according to who is ultimate.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my deliverance; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I tremble?So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear. What will a human do to me?THE THREAD
Do not say, A binding, to all of them to whom this people shall say, A binding; do not fear their terror, nor be shaken.The same Hebrew fear-root, ירא (y-r-ʾ), appears in the warning not to fear “their fear” and in “your fear” in verse 13. The next verse keeps the threat in view while shifting the center of dread from the crowd’s alarm to the LORD.
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