What Does Isaiah 25:5 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low.
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 verse lowers both the force that roars and what it produces: the Hebrew behind “branch” can also carry the image of a silenced song.
THE MEANING
The LORD brings the roar of threatening powers down, like cloud shade breaking the heat that presses on you now. Their force does not keep rising without limit; even what they produce is brought low.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that a loud, frightening power is therefore permanent or untouchable. Its roar and the force behind it can be brought low.
THE ROOT
תַּכְנִיעַ
takhniaʿ
GROWS FROM
כנע
Be humbled or brought low; in its causative form, subdue.
“bring down” in this verse is takhniaʿ. English repeats the idea of lowering, but the Hebrew verb makes the first act active: the roar is subdued. The same root can describe being humbled, so the force that dominates is itself made to yield.
ALSO GROWS
hikhniʿ: Subdue, bring under.
הִכְנִיעַ
This causative form shows that the noise is actively brought under restraint.
nikhnaʿ: Be humbled, yield.
נִכְנַע
This form shows the other side of the root: what was high or forceful becomes low.
זְמִיר
zemir
GROWS FROM
זמר
The consonants occur in word families for singing and for pruning or cutting back.
The Hebrew word behind “branch” also has a “song” reading, while its consonants also name pruning. The ending can therefore suggest both a ruthless power’s offshoot brought low and its song silenced, though the wordplay is a possibility rather than a certainty.
ALSO GROWS
zāmar: Sing, make music.
זָמַר
This sense lets the final image echo the noise that the verse says is brought down.
zāmar: Prune, cut back.
זָמַר
This sense fits the KJV’s branch image: what grows from the ruthless is cut down.
חֹרֶב
ḥōrev
GROWS FROM
חרב
Become dry or desolate.
The repeated heat comes from a word family that also names dryness and desolation. The cloud’s shadow breaks the intensity of the parching image, just as the verse pictures the threatening roar losing its force.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārēv: Dry, laid waste.
חָרֵב
This branch carries the parched condition behind the verse’s heat image.
ḥorbah: Desolation, ruined place.
חָרְבָּה
This branch deepens the image of a force that dries and overwhelms, now losing its hold.
THE PATTERN
The LORD restrains overwhelming force by lowering its roar and reducing its power.
Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.THE THREAD
Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people.The same noun, שְׁאוֹן (she’on, roar or tumult), names the strangers’ “noise” here and the sea’s noise in Psalm 65:7. That shared word lets the threatening sound in Isaiah be heard as a surge that the LORD can still.
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