What Does Isaiah 24:9 Mean in the King James?
They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.
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 Hebrew word for “bitter” shares its root with a word for making a life bitter, so sorrow reaches beyond the heart into taste itself.
THE MEANING
You can be surrounded by the signs of celebration and still find no song in them; even the drink tastes bitter. Loss reaches into the pleasures that once carried joy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that pleasure can guarantee joy: the wine is there, but the song is not.
THE ROOT
יֵמַר
yēmar
GROWS FROM
מרר
M-R-R
to be bitter or make bitter
Hebrew uses this root for both bitterness of taste and suffering that makes a life bitter. Here, bitterness enters even the drink associated with celebration.
ALSO GROWS
vaymareru: they made bitter
וַיְמָרְרוּ
Exodus uses this form for lives made bitter, showing that the same root reaches from taste into lived suffering.
merorim: bitter herbs
מְרֹרִים
The root also names bitterness as a taste, echoing the verse’s image of drink turned bitter.
THE PATTERN
When devastation empties life of joy, celebration’s familiar sounds and tastes vanish or turn bitter.
And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting: the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses; I have made their vintage shouting to cease.The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;THE THREAD
And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.The word translated “bitter” in Isaiah comes from the same Hebrew root used here for lives made bitter. The shared root lets the drink’s bitterness carry more than taste: suffering reaches into the experience of pleasure itself.
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