What Does Isaiah 1:31 Mean in the King James?
And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.
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
Strength becomes tinder, its maker or work becomes the spark, and both enter a fire no one can quench.
THE MEANING
The verse turns the strong into tow and its maker, or his work, into a spark. Neither stands outside the blaze: they burn together, and no one can put it out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that strength can remain untouched by the fire it helps kindle is undone: the strong and the maker or work burn together.
THE ROOT
נְעֹרֶת
neʿōret
GROWS FROM
נ־ע־ר
n-ʿ-r
shake, shake off
נְעֹרֶת (neʿōret, tow) is associated with נָעַר (naʿar, shake off), suggesting loosened flax fiber rather than solid material. The strong one is pictured as dry, separated fiber that can catch a spark.
ALSO GROWS
naʿar: shake, shake off
נָעַר
The verb evokes material being loosened or cast off, sharpening the image of strength reduced to tinder.
niʿer: shook out
נִעֵר
This form carries the same motion of shaking loose that the tow image suggests.
פֹּעֲלוֹ
poʿalo
GROWS FROM
פ־ע־ל
p-ʿ-l
do, work, act
The KJV renders פֹּעֲלוֹ (poʿalo) as “maker of it,” while the word also carries the sense of “his work” or “his deed.” The spark is therefore bound to the making and working itself, so the blaze reaches both the strong one and what he produces.
ALSO GROWS
paʿal: do, work, act
פָּעַל
The verb connects the maker to the action that produces or sustains something.
poʿal: work, deed, product
פֹּעַל
This noun keeps the maker’s work in view as the spark alongside the strong one.
מְכַבֶּה
mekhabbeh
GROWS FROM
כ־ב־ה
k-b-h
go out, extinguish
“quench” in this verse is mekhabbeh. The root spans a fire going out and someone putting it out. Here the active act of extinguishing is absent: none can stop the joined burning.
ALSO GROWS
kavah: go out, be extinguished
כָּבָה
This is the fire’s own going out, the possibility the verse says does not occur.
kibbah: put out, extinguish
כִּבָּה
This is the active act of quenching that no one can perform in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Strength and scale do not control fire’s outcome: dry material becomes fuel, and even a small spark can set much alight.
Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!THE THREAD
Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.Jeremiah repeats Isaiah’s burn-and-quench pairing: בָּעַר (baʿar, burn) and כָּבָה (kavah, quench or go out) frame a fire no one can stop. Isaiah shows the strong one and his work caught in that fire; Jeremiah makes its unquenchable force explicit.
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