What Does Isaiah 19:20 Mean in the King James?
And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.
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 rescue is already inside the verb: the one sent is sent to release those pressed in the narrow place.
THE MEANING
When pressure closes around you, your cry is heard by the LORD of hosts. Help arrives as one sent into the place of constriction, and deliverance opens a way out. Egypt’s name carries that narrowing, so the verse’s movement is from tightness toward spaciousness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that a cry from inside a constricted place goes unheard, or that pressure is proof of abandonment.
THE ROOT
מוֹשִׁיעַ
moshia
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
To deliver, bringing someone out of danger and into spaciousness.
“saviour” in this verse is moshia. The word names a person, while its root also names the act of bringing someone out. The sent one and the deliverance itself belong to one movement.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
The same root names the opening out itself, joining the deliverer to the release.
hoshia: deliver, bring out
הוֹשִׁיעַ
This verbal form makes the root an action: the deliverer brings people out.
וְיִשְׁלַח
veyishlach
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
To send forth, send away, release, or let go.
“send” in this verse is veyishlach. The verb describing the LORD’s response carries both sending forth and releasing. Rescue takes shape as something sent toward the pressure, beginning the movement of letting go.
ALSO GROWS
shillach: send away, release
שִׁלַּח
This form shows how sending can carry the sense of letting go, the release the verse promises.
shaluach: sent one, emissary
שָׁלוּחַ
The deliverer is someone sent; the rescue reaches the pressed through that sending.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
To narrow, bind, or press in.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries tzar, narrowness, with the -ayim ending holding the image of two narrows. The setting itself is constriction; the sent deliverer answers it by opening a way toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, tight
צַר
This branch reveals the image of narrowness carried in the name of the place.
tsarah: distress, straits
צָרָה
The same narrowness is experienced as distress, the pressure from which the cry rises.
THE PATTERN
A cry from pressure meets a sent response that brings release.
And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.Both verses use שָׁלַח (shalach, send forth or release) to name the decisive movement. In Exodus, the one sent goes into Egypt to bring people out; Isaiah makes the same sending the answer to those pressed there.
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