What Does Isaiah 22:1 Mean in the King James?
The burden of the valley of vision. What aileth thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops?
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 “burden” is something borne, while the climb to the rooftops shows the whole self searching for a higher vantage point.
THE MEANING
You can carry a burden of seeing and still climb above the ground, searching for a vantage point. The question interrupts that upward rush: what is happening in you now? The verse holds vision and disorientation together without pretending that seeing has already brought clarity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that being surrounded by vision or insight means you are already seeing clearly.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
maśśāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
The Hebrew word מַשָּׂא (maśśāʾ, burden) grows from נשא (nāśāʾ, to lift or bear). The verse’s vision is not weightless: what comes into view can also be something carried, and the climb toward the rooftops gives that weight a bodily shape.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the verb at the root of the word for burden: the burden is what is borne.
nōśēʾ: A bearer; one who carries.
נֹשֵׂא
The same root names not only the weight, but the one who carries it.
nāśîʾ: A prince or leader; traditionally connected with one who is raised up.
נָשִׂיא
This branch brings carrying and elevation into the same consonantal family, echoing the movement toward the rooftops.
THE PATTERN
What is carried becomes visible through its weight, and bearing can either overwhelm one person or be shared.
For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The Hebrew word מַשָּׂא (maśśāʾ, burden) in this verse belongs to נשא (nāśāʾ, to lift or bear), the same root used in Isaiah 53:4 for bearing griefs and carrying sorrows. That shared root opens the burden of vision as something more than weight pressing down: it is also something brought into view by being borne.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us