What Does Isaiah 14:1 Mean in the King James?
For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
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 turns return into a widening: the displaced are settled on their ground, and their household becomes room for the stranger.
THE MEANING
Compassion gives the displaced a place to stand and makes the household capable of receiving the stranger. Belonging grows through attachment, without erasing the roots of the house.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must already belong before you can be received.
THE ROOT
וְנִלְוָה
venilvah
GROWS FROM
לוה
Join, accompany, attach oneself.
“joined” in this verse is venilvah. The stranger is described with a word of joining, and the next phrase deepens that image with another root for attachment. Belonging here is a bond formed with the household, not mere proximity to it.
ALSO GROWS
Levi: Joined.
לֵוִי
In Genesis 29:34, Leah says her husband will be joined to her and names her son Levi; the root becomes a name that carries the nature of joining.
liwyah: Wreath or garland.
לִוְיָה
A wreath encircles and is made of joined parts, giving a concrete image of connection gathered around something.
וְנִסְפְּחוּ
venispechu
GROWS FROM
ספח
Attach, add, join on.
“cleave” in this verse is venispechu. The house does not merely stand beside the stranger; the verse pictures the stranger as attached to it. This root makes inclusion an addition to the household, a widening of what is already there.
ALSO GROWS
saphiach: Aftergrowth or self-sown produce.
סָפִיחַ
The word describes growth added to a field, echoing the verse’s image of people being added to a household.
sappachat: Scab or skin eruption.
סַפַּחַת
This related word names something attached to the skin, showing the root’s sense of attachment to an existing surface.
יְרַחֵם
yerachem
GROWS FROM
רחם
Compassion and tender care.
“mercy” in this verse is yerachem. The root of compassion shares its consonants with the Hebrew word for womb, רֶחֶם (rechem). That connection gives the verse’s compassion the quality of close, life-holding care as it gathers people toward home.
ALSO GROWS
rechem: Womb.
רֶחֶם
The shared root connects compassion with intimate, protective care.
rachamim: Compassion.
רַחֲמִים
This noun from the same root carries the same tender care that begins the verse’s movement toward restoration.
rachum: Compassionate.
רַחוּם
This related form describes compassion as a quality, not only a single act.
THE PATTERN
Compassion makes belonging visible by bringing the stranger into the household.
Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi.Genesis uses וְיִלָּוֶה (veyillaveh, “be joined”), from the same root לוה (lavah, “join”) as Isaiah’s stranger who joins Jacob’s household. Levi’s name carries that same joining into a person’s name, making belonging audible in the root itself.
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