What Does Isaiah 1:2 Mean in the King James?
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The children’s rebellion is a breakaway from the very one who raised and lifted them, so rupture appears inside a relationship of care.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you now within a relationship where nurture and rupture coexist, with the heavens and earth called to hear that truth. God names the children as grown and lifted, and their breakaway as real. The care does not disappear when rebellion is named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that a real history of care makes rupture impossible: it names both the raising and the rebellion together.
THE ROOT
פָּשְׁעוּ
pāshəʿû
GROWS FROM
פשע
p-sh-ʿ
To break away; to revolt.
“rebelled” in this verse is pāshəʿû. The word names rebellion as a breakaway, not merely a mistake. That makes the rupture sharper: the ones who turn away are the very children God says he has raised and lifted.
ALSO GROWS
peshaʿ: Rebellion; breaking away.
פֶּשַׁע
This noun preserves the same sense of rupture carried by “rebelled.”
posheaʿ: A rebel; one who breaks away.
פּוֹשֵׁעַ
The root describes both the act of turning away and the one who does it.
גִּדַּלְתִּי
giddaltî
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
To grow or make great.
The verb behind “nourished” carries the sense of making children grow great, so the care described is enlargement, not mere provision. The verse places their breakaway after the growth they received.
ALSO GROWS
gādōl: Great; large.
גָּדוֹל
The related word shows the greatness contained in the act of raising.
gedullāh: Greatness; majesty.
גְּדֻלָּה
This branch echoes the scale of what God says he has given the children.
וְרוֹמַמְתִּי
wəromamti
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“brought up” in this verse is wəromamti. The verse uses a second verb for raising: one verb speaks of growth, the other of lifting high. Their rebellion follows both nurture and elevation, holding the depth of the rupture in view.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High; exalted.
רָם
This branch makes the height implied by “brought up” visible.
hērîm: He raised or lifted.
הֵרִים
This verb shares the root’s upward movement and clarifies the force of God’s action.
THE PATTERN
The created world is summoned as witness to human rupture and shares in its consequences.
Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me.The verb translated “transgressed” comes from the same root פשע (p-sh-ʿ) as “rebelled” here: both name a breaking away. The shared root lets the reader see the same rupture named across different relationships.
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