What Does Isaiah 26:6 Mean in the King James?
The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
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 makes the city’s fall bodily: the people pressed lowest become the feet that tread it down.
THE MEANING
The thing that towers over the reader can be brought low enough to lie beneath the feet of the poor. The poor and needy are not scenery in this reversal; their steps mark what has fallen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that poverty means permanent powerlessness: the poor are pictured with their feet on what once stood above them.
THE ROOT
וְתִרְמְסֶנָּה
wə-tirməsennāh
GROWS FROM
רמס
רמס (r-m-s): to trample, tread down.
“tread it down” in this verse is wə-tirməsennāh. English “tread down” can sound like a general victory, but רמס names pressure applied by feet to what lies beneath them. The poor and needy are not merely present when the city falls: the verse puts their feet on the fallen thing.
ALSO GROWS
rōmēs: one who tramples
רֹמֵס
The active form keeps the action attached to the one doing it; here, the verse places that action in the feet of the poor.
mirmās: a place trodden underfoot; trampling
מִרְמָס
This noun names the ground as something underfoot, echoing the verse’s repeated focus on foot, feet, and steps.
פַּעֲמֵי
paʿamei
GROWS FROM
פעם
פעם (p-ʿ-m): to strike or beat; as a noun, a beat, step, or occasion.
The word for steps belongs to a root that also counts beats and occasions. The needy’s steps read as repeated beats of pressure, not a single symbolic footfall.
ALSO GROWS
paʿam: a time, occasion, or step
פַּעַם
One word can mark either a counted occasion or a footfall, linking movement across the ground with repeated measure.
peʿamim: times, occasions, or steps
פְּעָמִים
The plural carries the sense of recurrence, illuminating the needy’s steps as a continuing tread.
THE PATTERN
When the high are brought down, the lowly gain ground and possession.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.THE THREAD
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.The Hebrew verb translated “trample” here shares the root רמס (r-m-s, “trample”) with Isaiah’s “tread it down.” Isaiah places that posture in the feet of the poor and needy, making their position in the reversal impossible to miss.
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