What Does Isaiah 10:21 Mean in the King James?
The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
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 Hebrew names both what remains and what it does: the remnant turns back toward the mighty God.
THE MEANING
What remains of you can still turn toward God. The verse holds loss and return together: what is left is not beyond the reach of the mighty God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that once something has been reduced, nothing meaningful can return.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yāshûv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back or return.
The word translated “return” carries the motion of turning back. The line says the remnant’s defining movement is a return toward God.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: A return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
It makes visible the turning already inside “shall return.”
hēshîv: To bring or restore someone or something.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative branch shows the root can describe a return brought about, not only a person’s own turning.
שְׁאָר
sheʾār
GROWS FROM
שאר
shaʾar
To remain or be left over.
The Hebrew repeats the word for remnant: “a remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob.” What remains is not incidental to the sentence; it is the subject of its return.
ALSO GROWS
sheʾērît: A remnant or surviving portion.
שְׁאֵרִית
The same root names what is left after loss, matching the verse’s focus on what remains.
nishʾar: Is left or remains.
נִשְׁאַר
This form emphasizes the state of being left over that the verse names as the starting point for return.
גִּבּוֹר
gibbôr
GROWS FROM
גבר
gāvar
To be strong or prevail.
“Mighty” comes from a root of strength and prevailing. The returning remnant turns toward El Gibbor, the God named by that strength.
ALSO GROWS
gāvar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb exposes the force carried by the title “mighty.”
gevûrāh: Strength or might.
גְּבוּרָה
This noun shares the root and makes the strength in “Mighty God” explicit.
THE PATTERN
What remains after devastation can still turn back toward God.
Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.THE THREAD
Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;Shearjashub (שְׁאָר יָשׁוּב, sheʾār yāshûv) means “a remnant shall return”, the same words that Isaiah 10:21 opens into a sentence. The name holds the remnant’s return as its nature; here that return is directed to El Gibbor, “Mighty God.”
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