What Does Isaiah 23:5 Mean in the King James?
As at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.
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 repeated report is more than information: the Hebrew says hearing it makes people writhe.
THE MEANING
The report concerning Egypt and the report of Tyre become a single shock to those who hear them. The verse shows how news can move through you as bodily distress before it becomes an explanation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a report is only information, untouched by the body: hearing can bring anguish into the body.
THE ROOT
יָחִילוּ
yāḥîlû
GROWS FROM
חול
ḥ-w-l (ḥûl): to writhe, whirl, tremble, or travail.
“sorely pained” in this verse is yāḥîlû. The word presents distress as movement in the body: the hearers writhe under what they hear. The same root reaches into labor and dance, gathering different forms of bodily motion under one seed.
ALSO GROWS
məḥōl: Dance or circle dance.
מְחוֹל
A dance and a tremor are different experiences of motion, but this branch shares the root’s image of a body in motion.
ḥōlēl: To writhe, whirl, or bring forth.
חוֹלֵל
This verbal branch makes the root’s bodily movement explicit, linking anguish with the labor of bringing forth.
לְשֵׁמַע
ləšēmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ (shamaʿ): to hear or listen; the word-family gathers what is heard.
“report” in this verse is ləšēmaʿ. Both reports use the שמע family: one concerning Egypt, one concerning Tyre. The repetition makes hearing the bridge by which distant upheaval reaches the people who receive the news.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
The verb names the act beneath both reports: someone hears, and what is heard has consequences.
shĕmûʿāh: Report, news, or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows how the root for hearing also names the news carried to a hearer.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
m-ṣ-r (matsar): to press in or constrain; מֵצַר names a strait or narrow place.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitsrayim. Mitzrayim carries the consonants of מֵצַר (mēṣar, a strait or constriction), and its -ayim ending presents the name in a dual form. The report from this place of narrowing is heard alongside Tyre’s, and the hearers themselves are made to writhe.
ALSO GROWS
mēṣar: A strait, narrow place, or distress.
מֵצַר
This branch gives the constriction carried in the name a concrete form: a place with little room.
mĕṣārîm: Straits or narrow places.
מְצָרִים
The plural form carries the same m-ṣ-r consonants and extends the image of constriction.
THE PATTERN
What is heard carries distant events into the hearers’ bodies and responses.
And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch.THE THREAD
Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.The Hebrew תָּחִיל (tāḥîl, she writhes or is in labor) belongs to the same חול (ḥûl, writhe or travail) root family as יָחִילוּ here. Isaiah uses that bodily movement for labor pangs there, revealing the physical force inside the anguish at Tyre’s report.
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