What Does Isaiah 24:19 Mean in the King James?
The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
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
Three Hebrew action roots are each sounded twice, while “earth” is repeated three times: break, crumble, totter, until no ground feels fixed.
THE MEANING
The ground you count on is breaking, crumbling, and reeling; this verse names collapse without shrinking it. The repeated “earth” makes the rupture feel total.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what feels foundational is guaranteed to stay intact.
THE ROOT
רֹעָה הִתְרֹעֲעָה
rōʿāh hitrōʿăʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
To break or shatter; the root family also carries the sense of what is bad or harmful.
“broken down” in this verse is rōʿāh hitrōʿăʿāh. The Hebrew pairs an infinitive absolute with a verb from the same root, intensifying the breaking. English adds “utterly”; Hebrew makes the action sound twice.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, harmful, evil.
רַע
The same root family joins harm with brokenness, sharpening the image of a world ruptured at its foundation.
hērēaʿ: To do harm or act badly.
הֵרֵעַ
The root’s sense of damage reaches beyond physical breaking to harm itself.
פּוֹר הִתְפּוֹרְרָה
pōr hitpōrĕrāh
GROWS FROM
פרר
To break apart, crumble, or make void.
“dissolved” in this verse is pōr hitpōrĕrāh. This root shifts the image from a break to something coming apart into pieces. Its doubled form intensifies the collapse, while related forms can describe breaking a covenant or making something void.
ALSO GROWS
hēfēr: He broke, violated, or annulled.
הֵפֵר
The same root family can describe a covenant being broken, linking the earth’s fragmentation with the rupture of a bond.
hitpōrēr: To crumble or break apart.
הִתְפּוֹרֵר
This form pictures something coming apart from within, as the earth does in this verse.
מוֹט הִתְמוֹטְטָה
mōṭ hitmōṭĕṭāh
GROWS FROM
מוט
To totter, slip, or lose one’s footing.
“moved exceedingly” in this verse is mōṭ hitmōṭĕṭāh. The last root turns collapse into a loss of footing: the earth reels. Its doubled form carries the stanza from rupture and fragmentation into full instability.
ALSO GROWS
yimmōṭ: He or it will slip or be shaken.
יִמּוֹט
The same verb describes what can happen when something once firm loses its footing.
emmōṭ: I will be moved or shaken.
אֶמּוֹט
The root can describe a person’s own footing giving way, extending the earth’s instability to the individual.
THE PATTERN
When the world’s foundations shake, Scripture names the instability through the earth itself breaking, slipping, or being shaken.
The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.THE THREAD
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;The Hebrew root מוֹט (mōṭ, to totter or slip) links Isaiah’s “moved exceedingly” with Psalm 46’s “be removed.” Psalm 46 holds the reader inside that same image of the earth and its mountains losing their footing.
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