What Does Isaiah 12:3 Mean in the King James?
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
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 verse makes deliverance a source you can draw from, while joy belongs to the drawing itself.
THE MEANING
God’s deliverance meets you as water at a source, not as an abstraction. You are pictured drawing from it now, with joy present in the receiving.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that deliverance is only a future event: the image is water being drawn now.
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּעָה
yeshuah
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, rescue, bring out of constriction into open space.
“salvation” in this verse is yeshuah. Yeshuah shares its seed with yasha, the act of delivering; the word carries more than escape from danger, it opens what is cramped into room to live. Here, the well makes deliverance an accessible source, and joy is part of drawing from it.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver, rescue.
יָשַׁע
The verb shows the active movement contained in the noun: deliverance is something that brings a person out.
yesha: Deliverance, rescue.
יֵשַׁע
This related form keeps the idea of rescue joined to the same root that names the source in this verse.
Yeshua: The name Yeshua, carrying the sense of deliverance.
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name shares the deliverance-root, so the verse’s “wells of salvation” echo deliverance as a nature, not merely an event.
מַעְיְנֵי
ma'aynei
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; spring or source of water.
The word translated “wells” is ma’ayan, a spring or fountain, built on the same consonants as ayin, eye. Hebrew lets a spring be the land’s “eye”: hidden water comes into view as a source you can draw from.
ALSO GROWS
ayin: Eye.
עַיִן
The shared word-shape links seeing with the place where water appears from beneath the ground.
ma'yan: Spring, fountain.
מַעְיָן
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “wells,” pointing to a springing source rather than a closed container.
ma'yanot: Springs, fountains.
מַעְיָנוֹת
The plural branch makes the image abundant: deliverance is pictured as multiple sources of water.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance is pictured as water received from a source that keeps giving and as life that flows outward.
The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.The word translated “salvation” in both verses is the same Hebrew word, yeshuah: deliverance. Verse 2 names the source; verse 3 pictures that deliverance as water drawn with joy.
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