What Does Isaiah 13:7 Mean in the King James?
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt:
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
Fear loosens the hands’ grip and melts the heart: the verse shows dread taking hold of both action and inner resolve.
THE MEANING
When dread fills the horizon, your hands go slack and your heart melts; the verse gives fear a bodily shape, reaching both what you do and the inner center that holds you. Its image is immediate, not abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that fear lives only in the mind dissolves here: the hands lose strength too.
THE ROOT
תִּרְפֶּינָה
tirpeynah
GROWS FROM
רפה
raphah
to slacken, loosen, let drop
English “faint” can suggest simple weakness, but רפה (raphah) means to slacken or let drop. The hands are pictured losing their hold; the same root can express letting go, joining bodily collapse to release.
ALSO GROWS
harpu: Let go; release your grip.
הַרְפּוּ
Psalm 46:10 uses this form for letting go, revealing the lost grip inside the hands that go slack.
hereph: Let me alone; release me.
הֶרֶף
In Deuteronomy 9:14, this root describes being let go, giving the slackened hands the sense of a hold released.
יִמָּס
yimmas
GROWS FROM
מסס
masas
to melt, dissolve, waste away
“melt” in this verse is yimmas. The heart does not merely feel fear; it dissolves. The same root describes hearts melting in Joshua 5:1, making this a picture of dread reaching the inner center until it loses its firmness.
ALSO GROWS
namas: To melt or dissolve.
נָמַס
Psalm 97:5 uses this form for hills melting like wax, extending the image of dissolution from the heart to the landscape.
vayyimmas: And it melted away.
וַיִּמַּס
Joshua 5:1 uses this form of hearts melting, echoing Isaiah’s image of dread dissolving the inner center.
THE PATTERN
Overwhelming dread is shown as a bodily collapse that weakens the hands and dissolves the heart.
And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.THE THREAD
We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail.“Wax feeble” uses the same root רפה (raphah), meaning to slacken or let drop, as Isaiah’s “be faint.” Jeremiah makes the shared image plain: anguish is felt as hands losing their hold.
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