What Does Isaiah 15:2 Mean in the King James?
He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.
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 Hebrew word for “beard” shares its root with “elder,” so the cut marks grief on a visible sign of age.
THE MEANING
When loss reaches a people, it can be heard in their cries and seen in their bodies. Here, the howl and the bared heads and cut beards make grief public, carried across a whole community. The verse leaves the devastation visible rather than turning it into an abstraction.
THE ROOT
זָקָן
zāqān
GROWS FROM
זקן
z-q-n
to grow old; to be aged
English treats “beard” as a body part, but Hebrew places it in the z-q-n word family with “elder” and “old age.” The verse locates grief on a visible feature whose word family also names age.
ALSO GROWS
zāqēn: elder; an aged person
זָקֵן
The same consonants that name the beard also name the elder, linking the cut beard to age made visible.
ziqnāh: old age
זִקְנָה
This branch extends the word family to aging itself, deepening the significance of grief marked on the face.
קָרְחָה
qorḥāh
GROWS FROM
קרח
q-r-ḥ
to be or become bald
“baldness” in this verse is qorḥāh. The Hebrew names the bare patch itself, from the verb “to become bald.” Beside the beard cut away, it gives grief two visible signs: what is clipped and what is left bare.
ALSO GROWS
qērēaḥ: a bald person
קֵרֵחַ
The same root names the person whose scalp is bare, making baldness a visible bodily condition.
qorḥāh: baldness; a bald patch
קָרְחָה
This noun names the exposed place left without hair, so the body itself carries a mark of mourning.
THE PATTERN
Communal grief becomes visible through bodily signs and shared lament.
For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,THE THREAD
For every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth.Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew word for “beard,” זָקָן (zāqān), from the root also found in “elder” and “old age.” The echo places Isaiah’s cut beard within a recurring language where communal loss is written onto the body.
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