What Does Isaiah 1:5 Mean in the King James?
Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
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 blows do not meet defiance alone: the head is sick and the heart faint, so revolt rises from a self failing at its center.
THE MEANING
You are inside a cycle where another blow does not bring you back; it is followed by further turning away. The sickness reaches the head that leads and the heart that steadies the inner life, so the damage is described as whole-person illness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that another blow must produce a return: here, repeated striking is followed by more revolt because the sickness has reached the inward source.
THE ROOT
סָרָה
sarah
GROWS FROM
סור
sur
Turn aside, depart; in causative forms, cause to depart or remove.
The root makes revolt a directional word: it is a turning away, not just a label for defiance. The verse shows striking followed by more turning aside, a cycle where the outward blows do not bring the inner movement back.
ALSO GROWS
sur: Turn aside, depart.
סוּר
The verb names the direction implicit in revolt: a movement away.
hesir: Remove, take away.
הֵסִיר
In its causative form, the root describes making something depart, showing how turning aside and removal share a movement.
רֹאשׁ
rosh
GROWS FROM
ראש
rosh
Head, top; by extension, chief or first.
Rosh can name both a physical head and what is first or chief. That lets this image reach beyond the skull: the leading faculty is sick too, while the faint heart shows the inward person is failing.
ALSO GROWS
reshit: Beginning, first.
רֵאשִׁית
Its sense of beginning links the head with what stands at the start or source.
rishon: First, foremost.
רִאשׁוֹן
Its sense of being foremost echoes the head as the leading part.
THE PATTERN
Scripture shows inner sickness by how far the disorder reaches through the whole person.
A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.THE THREAD
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.Verse 5 says the whole head is sick; verse 6 uses that same word for the upper end of a body with no soundness from sole to head. The image expands the sickness from head and heart to the entire body.
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