What Does Isaiah 14:25 Mean in the King James?
That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
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 measures victory by what happens to the shoulders: when the oppressor is broken, the load he imposed departs too.
THE MEANING
Here, the force that tramples the land is itself broken on that ground; its yoke departs, and the load it imposed leaves the shoulders that carried it. The verse makes release tangible: the power falls, and its bodily weight is gone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a dominating power’s weight is simply the people’s lot: here, the yoke departs and the burden leaves their shoulders.
THE ROOT
סֻבֳּלוֹ
subbalo
GROWS FROM
סבל
to bear or carry a load
English gives us a noun for burden, but the Hebrew root also names carrying and the carrier. The load is inseparable from the shoulders bearing it, so its departure is concrete: what power required people to carry is removed from them.
ALSO GROWS
sāval: to bear, carry, endure
סָבַל
The burden grows from the act of bearing; when the burden departs, the carrying imposed by the oppressor ends too.
sabbāl: porter; one who carries loads
סַבָּל
The word for the bearer grows from the same root as the burden, linking what is carried with the people made to carry it.
sēvel: burden; forced labor
סֵבֶל
This branch connects a physical load with oppressive labor, deepening the verse’s picture of what leaves the shoulders.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance becomes visible when domination loses its hold and the load it placed on people comes off their shoulders.
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.THE THREAD
And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.Isaiah 10:27 uses the same Hebrew word for the burden that leaves the shoulder. Isaiah 14:25 repeats that image as the Assyrian is broken: the shared root makes the burden’s removal a concrete measure of release.
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