What Does Isaiah 2:15 Mean in the King James?

And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,

Isaiah 2:15 · KJV

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

A height built to escape vulnerability is still inside the reach of the leveling.

THE MEANING

The verse places high towers and fortified walls within the reach of the leveling it describes. Even structures built to rise above danger and keep threats outside are not beyond exposure; what looks secure can still be brought low.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a high enough position or a thick enough boundary can make vulnerability disappear.

THE ROOT

גָּבֹהַּ

gavoah

GROWS FROM

גבה

To be high or elevated; figuratively, to be exalted.

“high” in this verse is gavoah. The word joins physical height with exaltation, so the tower’s upward reach can also carry the claim of being above exposure. Yet the verse places it under “every,” giving that height no exemption.

ALSO GROWS

gavah: To rise or be elevated; it can also describe haughtiness.

גָּבַהּ

The same root links literal height with the posture of being lifted above others.

gobah: Elevation or measurable height.

גֹּבַהּ

It shows that the root names height itself, while the verse turns that height into something still subject to exposure.

מִגְדָּל

migdal

GROWS FROM

גדל

To grow, become great, or make great.

The tower is linguistically tied to greatness and growth: it is a built form that rises into prominence. Here, even that accumulated height and strength is included among what cannot secure itself.

ALSO GROWS

gadol: Greatness or largeness.

גָּדוֹל

The shared root makes the tower’s scale part of its word-family.

gadal: To increase or grow in stature.

גָּדַל

The tower is connected to the idea of growing large, yet its size does not place it beyond the verse’s reach.

THE PATTERN

Human elevation cannot secure itself from the leveling that exposes its limits.

For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:

Isaiah 2:12 · KJVThe verse names the pride and elevation that Isaiah 2:15 locates in towers and fortified walls, then declares that they are brought low.

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Genesis 11:4 · KJVThe builders raise a tower as protection against scattering and as a monument to their name, making the human bid for security through height explicit.

Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;

Luke 3:5 · KJVThe image of mountains and hills brought low shows the same leveling reaching even what stands highest.

THE THREAD

The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

Proverbs 18:10 · KJV

Isaiah’s tower is a human-made height included among what is exposed; Proverbs uses the same Hebrew word, migdal, for the LORD as a strong tower. The refuge shifts from structures raised by human strength to the LORD’s nature, carried in the word “name.”

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