What Does Isaiah 13:10 Mean in the King James?
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
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 judgment here reaches every light that makes the sky readable: none remains to shine.
THE MEANING
The verse names judgment as a collapse of the visible order: stars, sun, and moon all fail to give their light. Even the sun’s going forth brings darkness, and the moon offers no lesser light as refuge. The familiar signs of the sky no longer orient the reader.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the lights by which the world feels stable will always keep their place and function.
THE ROOT
אוֹר
ʾōr
GROWS FROM
א־ו־ר
Light, brightness, illumination.
The stars’ “their light” and the moon’s “her light” both contain this same root. The verse names their radiance as one shared kind of thing, then shows that light failing across the sky.
ALSO GROWS
māʾōr: Luminary, light bearer.
מָאוֹר
This word names the kind of heavenly body whose light no longer serves its familiar purpose.
hēʾîr: To illuminate, give light.
הֵאִיר
The stars and moon cease doing what this related verb describes: illuminating.
יָרֵחַ
yārēaḥ
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ח
Moon; the related form also names the month.
Hebrew uses related forms of this root for the moon and the month, binding the luminary to a recurring measure of time. When the moon’s light fails, the verse dims both the sky and a familiar marker of time.
ALSO GROWS
yārēaḥ: Moon.
יָרֵחַ
This is the luminary whose light fails in the verse.
yeraḥ: Month, a measure of time.
יֶרַח
The related word ties the moon to the cycles by which time is marked.
צֵאתוֹ
tseʾtō
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
To go out, come forth, emerge.
The sun is darkened at its very going forth. The root makes the failure arrive at the moment of emergence, when the sun would ordinarily begin to illuminate the day.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣāʾ: To go out, come forth.
יָצָא
This is the verb underlying the sun’s “going forth.”
môṣāʾ: A going out, an exit or point of departure.
מוֹצָא
This related form reinforces the sense of an outward movement whose expected light does not arrive.
THE PATTERN
When judgment overwhelms the world’s order, scripture pictures the celestial lights themselves failing.
The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;THE THREAD
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.The word for light in both passages grows from the Hebrew root א־ו־ר (ʾ-w-r). Genesis names the lights’ ordering work; Isaiah shows that their light can fail, making the reversal of that order visible.
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