What Does Isaiah 22:16 Mean in the King James?
What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation for himself in a rock?
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 sepulchre is already called a dwelling: the monument meant to make a place for the self is a grave.
THE MEANING
The question presses on what you call yours: what is here for you, and whom do you have here? A place is cut high into rock and engraved as a dwelling for the self. The verse lets its first name, sepulchre, expose the limit of the home being made.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a monument can secure a permanent place for the self dissolves here: the carved dwelling is still a sepulchre.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁכָּן
mishkan
GROWS FROM
שׁכן
sh-k-n
to dwell, settle, or remain in a place
English separates sepulchre from habitation, but Hebrew names the carved tomb a מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan, dwelling). The same root also gives שָׁכֵן (shakhen, neighbor), one who dwells nearby; here, the dwelling is being carved for the self.
ALSO GROWS
shakan: to dwell, settle
שָׁכַן
This is the verb beneath habitation: the grave is presented as somewhere to dwell.
shakhen: neighbor, one who dwells nearby
שָׁכֵן
The same root can name a dweller in relation to others, while this dwelling is made for the self.
חֹקְקִי
ḥōqəqî
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
to cut into, engrave, or inscribe; by extension, to decree
The English word graveth can sound like decoration, but its Hebrew root also gives language for fixed statutes and the one who decrees them. That adds a sense of inscribing something as settled, even as the object carved into the rock remains a grave.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoq: statute, fixed ordinance
חֹק
This related word carries the root’s sense of something cut or set in place.
meḥoqeq: lawgiver, one who decrees
מְחוֹקֵק
The root extends from engraving to establishing what is fixed.
חָצַבְתָּ
ḥāṣavta
GROWS FROM
חצב
ḥ-ṣ-b
to hew, quarry, or cut out
The Hebrew repeats this root in the phrases translated hewed and heweth. That repetition keeps the act of cutting visible: this place does not simply appear as a home; it is quarried out here, for himself, in rock.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṣav: to hew or quarry
חָצַב
This is the root verb behind the act of cutting the sepulchre out.
ḥōṣēv: hewer, one who cuts out
חֹצֵב
The verse repeats the root in a form describing the one doing the hewing.
THE PATTERN
Self-built monuments and stores can promise permanence, but they cannot secure a human life.
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.Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.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
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.Isaiah calls the rock-cut grave a מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan, dwelling), and Exodus uses the same שׁכן (sh-k-n, dwell) root in “that I may dwell among them.” The shared root opens a contrast between a dwelling carved for the self in rock and a dwelling among others.
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