What Does Isaiah 10:10 Mean in the King James?
As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
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 conqueror ranks a city’s gods by what his hand can reach, while pesel names them as carved things whose shape comes from human hands.
THE MEANING
A boastful voice measures the powers of cities by the images it can seize and compare. You encounter the same scale whenever visible victory is treated as proof that what someone trusts is powerful or true. Yerushalayim carries the language of wholeness, yet it too is placed on this constricted measure.
THE ROOT
פְּסִילֵיהֶם
pesileihem
GROWS FROM
פ־ס־ל
p-s-l
To carve or hew into shape.
“Graven images” can sound like a religious category; pesel carries the act of carving inside the noun. The boast ranks these images by their apparent greatness, while their root keeps their made shape visible.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To carve or hew.
פָּסַל
The verb names the shaping act concealed inside “graven.”
pesel: A carved image.
פֶּסֶל
The noun names the shaped object the conqueror ranks.
מַמְלָכוֹת
mamlakhot
GROWS FROM
מ־ל־ך
m-l-k
To rule or reign.
Mamlakhot (kingdoms) and melek (king) grow from the same root of rule. The boast folds conquered territory and the authority represented by its idols into one scorecard, as though possession itself were a measure of truth.
ALSO GROWS
melek: King.
מֶלֶךְ
The ruler and the realm belong to the same word-family.
malkhut: Kingdom or kingship.
מַלְכוּת
It shows how the verse’s “kingdoms” carry the idea of rule, not territory alone.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
sh-l-m
Whole or complete; the language of wholeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim bears the language of shalom, wholeness, with a dual ending that echoes twofold wholeness. Set beside the boast’s inventory of images, the name reveals how even wholeness can be judged by a constricted measure.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
It brings the name’s language of wholeness into the verse’s comparison.
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
It shows the shared root beneath the name’s sense of completeness.
THE PATTERN
A thing made by human hands does not become a true power because a kingdom treats it as one.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands:THE THREAD
What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?Isaiah’s “graven images” is pesel, a carved thing; Habakkuk uses the same word and places the image beside its maker and the lies it teaches. The shared root brings the supposedly superior gods back to shaped material that cannot speak truth.
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