What Does Isaiah 19:13 Mean in the King James?
The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
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 people expected to be Egypt’s cornerstones become the force that makes Egypt wander.
THE MEANING
This verse shows you that a title does not make someone a sound foundation: those who hold a people together can themselves lose their way. When they lead the people astray, their confusion spreads into the shared path.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that people in positions of authority are reliable simply because of their position; those holding the corners can pull an entire people off course.
THE ROOT
פִּנַּת
pinnat
GROWS FROM
פנה
To turn or face; פִּנָּה (pinnah) means a corner or chief support.
The word rendered “stay” is literally a corner or chief support. The verse places the people who hold Egypt’s tribal structure together at its corners, and shows those same leaders leading the nation astray.
ALSO GROWS
panah: To turn or direct oneself toward something.
פָּנָה
A corner is where directions meet and turn; the leaders who serve as the nation’s corners also shape its orientation.
panim: The face, or the presence turned toward someone.
פָּנִים
The shared root connects a structure’s supporting corner with the direction it faces, adding weight to the image of leaders shaping a people’s bearings.
וְהִתְעוּ
vehit'u
GROWS FROM
תעה
To wander or go astray; in a causative form, to lead astray.
The word translated “seduced” carries the sense of causing someone to wander. The leaders do more than make a poor decision: their misdirection becomes the path of the people they are meant to support.
ALSO GROWS
ta'inu: A form of the root meaning to wander or lose the way.
תָּעִינוּ
Isaiah 53:6 uses this form for a collective wandering, showing the same root at work when a whole people has lost its way.
hit'u'm: A causative form meaning to lead others away from the path.
הִתְעוּם
Jeremiah 50:6 uses this form of shepherds leading their people astray, echoing the leaders’ role in Isaiah 19.
THE PATTERN
When those entrusted with a people’s bearings lose the way, their misdirection becomes communal.
My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.THE THREAD
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.The root תעה (ta’ah), meaning “to wander or go astray,” appears here in the causative “seduced” and there in “gone astray.” The shared root links the leaders who cause wandering with the people who find themselves wandering.
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