What Does Isaiah 19:9 Mean in the King James?
Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
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 places the skilled makers inside the failure of their own craft: cloth can be woven, but security cannot.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the moment when skilled work still cannot preserve the livelihood it serves. The weavers’ shame exposes how labor can be real and skillful without securing its own future.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that competence and constant production make a person invulnerable. Skill can be genuine and still have limits in what it can secure.
THE ROOT
וְהֹבִישׁוּ
wəhōḇîšû
GROWS FROM
בושׁ
בושׁ (bûš, bush) means to be ashamed or disappointed, to meet the exposure of what fails to sustain expectation.
Here “confounded” carries the root’s shade of shame: exposure when expected support fails. The makers and weavers remain skilled, yet their skill cannot guarantee what their labor is meant to secure.
ALSO GROWS
bōsh: Be ashamed.
בּוֹשׁ
The basic verb makes the workers’ outcome a state of exposure, not merely a moment of confusion.
būšāh: Shame or embarrassment.
בּוּשָׁה
This noun from the same consonants names the felt condition that the verse’s “confounded” carries.
אֹרְגִים
ʾōrəgîm
GROWS FROM
ארג
ארג (ʾārag) means to weave or interlace threads.
The word points to work made by joining strands, a patient, tangible craft. Its intricate making stands beside the verse’s stark outcome: the people who weave are still confounded.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōrēg: A weaver.
אֹרֵג
This form names the person doing the interlacing, as the verse names the workers by their craft.
ʾarīgāh: Weaving.
אֲרִיגָה
This form names the act itself and makes the repeated joining of threads visible inside the verse’s work.
THE PATTERN
Human labor and stored wealth can be real yet cannot guarantee the future they are meant to secure.
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.Jeremiah uses the same root בושׁ (bûš, to be ashamed) for those who forsake the LORD, bringing Isaiah’s outcome into a wider image of failed dependence. Its “fountain of living waters” sharpens the contrast between what human hands produce and what sustains life.
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