What Does Isaiah 17:6 Mean in the King James?
Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the LORD God of Israel.
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 counts what survives one berry at a time, yet calls the remaining branches fruitful.
THE MEANING
The image speaks of a tree shaken nearly bare: only a few berries remain on its upper branches. The remnant is small enough to count, yet it still holds fruit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what survives a severe shaking is only loss: even a handful can remain, still belonging to a fruitful tree.
THE ROOT
וְנִשְׁאַר
ve-nish'ar
GROWS FROM
שאר
sha'ar
to remain, be left over
The word translated “left” grows from the same root used for “remnant.” What remains is not an unrelated scrap; it is the very thing the Hebrew names as what has endured. Here the remnant is visible as a few berries still clinging to the tree.
ALSO GROWS
she'ar: remainder, remnant
שְׁאָר
This noun from the same root names what is left after a larger whole has been reduced.
she'erit: remnant, what remains
שְׁאֵרִית
This is the same root in the language of a surviving remnant, linking the berries in this verse to a wider biblical image of what endures.
פֹּרִיָּה
poriyyah
GROWS FROM
פרה
parah
to bear fruit, be fruitful, multiply
The branches are called fruitful even as the verse measures their remaining berries in twos, threes, fours, and fives. The scarcity describes how much remains, while the root still carries the capacity to bear fruit.
ALSO GROWS
peri: fruit
פְּרִי
The few berries are named as fruit: what remains is still something living and produced by the tree.
parah: to bear fruit, be fruitful
פָּרָה
This verb carries the root’s generative sense, present in the description of branches that still bear.
THE PATTERN
When a whole is shaken nearly bare, life can remain as a small, countable remnant.
When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.THE THREAD
And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.Isaiah’s “left” and Kings’ “remnant” grow from the same שאר root, the language of what remains. Here only a few berries cling to the branches; there the remnant takes root and bears fruit, opening the possibility of renewed growth within what survives.
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