What Does Isaiah 9:20 Mean?
He shall carve on the right hand and be hungry; he shall eat on the left hand and not be filled; each shall eat the flesh of his own arm.
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 he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:THE KEY
When hunger cannot be filled by either hand, the body that reaches becomes the next thing eaten.
THE MEANING
Hunger reaches to both sides and remains unsatisfied; the image ends with each person eating the flesh of his own arm. The verse speaks now in the unbearable image of need consuming the body’s own strength, with no relief in more consumption.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that taking enough will finally end the hunger; here consumption grows while fullness never comes.
THE ROOT
יֹאכֵלוּ
yōʾkhēlū
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
eat, consume
“eat” in this verse is yōʾkhēlū. The passage repeats אכל from reaching for food to eating one’s own arm: the act of eating turns inward. The same root family names מַאֲכָל (maʾakhal), food, and מַאֲכֶלֶת (maʾakhelet), a knife, holding what is consumed and an instrument that cuts it in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
maʾakhal: food; something eaten
מַאֲכָל
The hunger searches on both sides for food, yet eating does not bring fullness.
maʾakhelet: knife
מַאֲכֶלֶת
The root family names both food and a cutting instrument; here the person’s own flesh becomes the meal.
שָׂבֵעוּ
śāvēʿū
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
ś-b-ʿ
be full, be sated
“filled” in this verse is śāvēʿū. This root names bodily fullness, not merely contentment. Even after eating from both sides, fullness remains absent, so consumption continues without satiety.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: full; sated
שָׂבֵעַ
The verse says this bodily state never arrives, even as the eating continues.
śōvaʿ: satiety; fullness
שֹׂבַע
The noun names the fullness the verse withholds from those who eat.
THE PATTERN
When appetite becomes self-governing, consumption can turn back onto the self or community while fullness remains unresolved.
All the toil of humankind is for his mouth, yet the living soul is not filled.Therefore they eat from the fruit of their way, and they are filled with their own counsel.But if you bite and devour one another, watch that you are not used up by one another.THE THREAD
Therefore they eat from the fruit of their way, and they are filled with their own counsel.Both passages use אכל (ʾ-k-l), “eat.” Proverbs names the same inward turn: what is consumed comes from the eater’s own way, while Isaiah makes that image brutally physical in the flesh of one’s own arm.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us