What Does Isaiah 11:16 Mean in the King James?
And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
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 remnant is not the end of the people; it is the people for whom the road is raised again.
THE MEANING
You meet the same movement in your own constriction: what remains of you is not abandoned in place; a way is raised through it. The exodus image names deliverance as a road that brings a people out of narrowness and toward room to move.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What remains after loss is too little to carry a future. Here the remnant, the people left, is precisely who receives a road forward.
THE ROOT
מְסִלָּה
mesillah
GROWS FROM
ס־ל־ל
s-l-l
To raise up, build up, or cast up.
מְסִלָּה (mesillah, a raised highway) grows from ס־ל־ל (s-l-l, to raise or cast up). The road is presented as something elevated and prepared across an obstruction: the remnant’s way forward is made passable.
ALSO GROWS
sollû: Raise or cast up.
סֹלּוּ
This command appears with “the highway” in Isaiah 62:10, showing the road as something raised and prepared for passage.
solelah: A raised siege mound or ramp.
סֹלְלָה
The same root names a raised earthwork; here, what is raised becomes a route for the people left.
שְׁאָר
she’ar yisha’er
GROWS FROM
ש־א־ר
sh-ʾ-r
To remain or be left over.
“remnant; left” in this verse is she’ar yisha’er. The verse calls the people a remnant and describes them as those who remain, using forms of ש־א־ר (sh-ʾ-r, to remain). English can make “remnant” sound like a fixed category; the Hebrew repeats the fact of remaining, then gives those who remain a way forward.
ALSO GROWS
she’ar: Remnant; what remains.
שְׁאָר
This noun names the people for whom the highway is made.
sha’ar: To remain or be left.
שָׁאַר
The related verb describes those who remain from Assyria, tying their survival directly to the promise of a path.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance makes a passage through the very barrier that seems to close the way.
But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;THE THREAD
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.Isaiah uses the same word מְסִלָּה (mesillah, a raised highway) for the way in the wilderness. The road for the remnant belongs to a recurring vision: the passage itself is raised into reach, and those traveling it are not left to find their own way.
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