What Does Isaiah 22:5 Mean in the King James?
For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains.
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 “valley of vision” is not spared the breach: the place of sight becomes the place where collapse is seen.
THE MEANING
When your trusted walls are breached, trouble is no longer contained: confusion spreads, and the cry rises toward the mountains. The verse names this rupture as occurring under the LORD of hosts; even the “valley of vision” becomes a place where collapse stands in full view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that clear sight, or standing in a place of vision, guarantees protection from collapse.
THE ROOT
מְהוּמָה
mĕhûmâ
GROWS FROM
המם
To throw into tumult or confusion; to unsettle the order of things.
The Hebrew word names commotion breaking across the scene, not only private distress. The same root can describe the act of throwing a whole host into disorder, so the trouble here reaches walls, people, and the surrounding landscape.
ALSO GROWS
hāmam: To confuse, discomfit, or throw into tumult.
הָמַם
Exodus 14:24 uses this verb for the LORD “troubling” the Egyptian host, showing the root’s sense of active disruption.
mĕhûmâ: Tumult, confusion, or commotion.
מְהוּמָה
This noun gathers the day’s upheaval into one word: the disorder spreads through the whole scene.
שׁוֹעַ
shōaʿ
GROWS FROM
שוע
To cry out for help; to make an urgent appeal.
“crying” in this verse is shōaʿ. The word carries the force of a plea for aid, not merely the sound of weeping. Its direction matters here: the cry goes toward the mountains as the walls come down.
ALSO GROWS
shāwaʿ: To cry out for help.
שָׁוַע
The same verb appears in Psalm 18:6, where a cry is directed to God.
shawʿāh: A cry for help or plea.
שַׁוְעָה
The noun form makes explicit that this kind of crying is an appeal rising from distress.
THE PATTERN
When upheaval reaches the things that seem to hold the world steady, even the landscape of refuge can shake.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.THE THREAD
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.The Hebrew root שוע (sh-w-ʿ), meaning to cry out for help, appears in Isaiah’s “crying” and in the psalm’s cry. Isaiah’s cry rises toward the mountains amid collapse; the psalm directs the same kind of plea to God and says it is heard.
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