What Does Isaiah 14:29 Mean in the King James?
Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
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 rod can break while its root still grows a new instrument of harm.
THE MEANING
A broken instrument of harm does not prove that the source of harm is gone. Here, that source grows into a new form: its fruit is a fiery, flying serpent. The warning speaks now in the gap between seeing a threat fall and seeing whether the violence beneath it has ended.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The break in visible power does not mean its source of violence is gone.
THE ROOT
שֹׁרֶשׁ
shōresh
GROWS FROM
שרש
sh-r-sh
Root: the source from which something takes hold and grows.
The verse locates the danger beneath the broken rod, in a source that can still grow. Its next expression is already pictured as fruit: the serpent’s root produces another, more fearsome form.
ALSO GROWS
shōresh: The underground part of a plant, and by extension its source.
שֹׁרֶשׁ
The serpent’s threat is presented as something with an origin that remains alive beneath what has been broken.
hishrish: To take root or establish roots.
הִשְׁרִישׁ
This related form shows the root as a continuing process: what has taken hold can keep growing and send out new life.
שָׂרָף
saraph
GROWS FROM
שרף
s-r-p
To burn or consume; שָׂרָף (saraph) can name a burning serpent.
The word translated fiery carries the sense of burning in the name of the creature itself. The verse’s final image is not merely a serpent that looks dangerous; its name marks it with consuming heat.
ALSO GROWS
saraph: To burn or consume.
שָׂרַף
The root gives the serpent’s threat the force of something that burns through what it touches.
seraphim: Burning ones, the plural form associated with seraphim.
שְׂרָפִים
The same root names beings as burning ones, revealing that the verse’s fiery serpent carries the quality of burning in its very name.
THE PATTERN
A visible ending does not reveal the whole future: what remains in the source can send out new growth.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.THE THREAD
And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:Both verses use שֹׁרֶשׁ (shōresh, root) for what a new growth comes from. In this verse the root yields a fiery serpent; in Isaiah 11:1 Jesse’s root yields a branch, showing how what grows reveals the nature of its source.
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