What Does Isaiah 21:10 Mean in the King James?
O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.
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 are named both as “my threshing” and as grain on the floor, so the verse speaks to them from inside the pressure working them.
THE MEANING
You are met with an image of grain under real pressure, being worked on the threshing floor. The speaker says the word heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, is declared directly to you. The verse holds the force of the image and the directness of that address together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Pressure does not mean the message has gone silent or that you are unaddressed: the word is heard and declared to you.
THE ROOT
מְדֻשָּׁתִי
medushati
GROWS FROM
דוש
To tread out grain; to thresh.
The possessive makes it “my threshing,” and the verse immediately names grain on the floor: the people are spoken of from within a forceful process. The Hebrew root brings the action of threshing close to the image, keeping its pressure tangible.
ALSO GROWS
dush: To thresh or tread out grain.
דּוּשׁ
This is the verb at the heart of the verse’s image: grain is worked by force on the floor.
yedushennu: He will thresh it.
יְדוּשֶׁנּוּ
Isaiah 28:28 uses this form of the same root, making the threshing a concrete action that can be named and examined.
שָׁמַעְתִּי
shamati
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen; in context, to receive what is heard.
“heard” in this verse is shamati. The verse moves from hearing the word to declaring it to the people on the threshing floor. A related Hebrew word for a report, shemuʿah, connects hearing with the message that is passed on.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear or listen.
שְׁמַע
The familiar imperative shows the root’s direct sense of hearing.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes the link between what is heard and a report that can be spoken clear.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s grain-floor images portray pressure as a real force that separates grain from what cannot remain with it.
Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.THE THREAD
Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.The word for threshing here and the verb in Isaiah 28:28 share the Hebrew root דוש (dush), “to thresh.” That verse gives the same forceful image its full action, including its bruising, and makes the process itself visible.
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