What Does Isaiah 15:1 Mean in the King James?
The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence; because in the night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to silence;
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 doubled night and doubled silence compress the whole devastation into one movement: two cities are stripped and their public life stops.
THE MEANING
Ar and Kir are laid waste in the night, and Moab is brought to silence. The repeated phrasing holds the violence in view: devastation comes swiftly, and the cities’ life is cut off before morning. The verse speaks to the shock of a community losing its home and voice at once.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a place always has time to answer an approaching disaster; here, the devastation is complete in the night.
THE ROOT
שֻׁדַּד
shuddad
GROWS FROM
שדד
shadad
To devastate or despoil; to violently strip a place.
“laid waste” in this verse is shuddad. English names the result, while the Hebrew root centers the act of stripping and devastation. Its branches name both the devastation and the devastator, so the ruin here belongs to active assault, not quiet abandonment.
ALSO GROWS
shod: Devastation, plunder.
שֹׁד
The same root names the ruin produced by the act of laying waste.
shoded: Devastator, plunderer.
שֹׁדֵד
The root also names the one who inflicts the devastation, keeping the violence of the verse in view.
THE PATTERN
Catastrophic reversal can arrive within a night or an hour, leaving witnesses to encounter the ruin already complete.
And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.THE THREAD
Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.Joel’s “destruction” is שֹׁד (shod), “devastation,” from the same שדד (shadad), “devastate or despoil,” root as Isaiah’s שֻׁדַּד (shuddad), “laid waste.” The shared root connects Moab’s ruined cities with Joel’s naming of the devastation itself.
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