What Does Isaiah 27:9 Mean in the King James?
By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.
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 purging visible as demolition: the altar stones are broken apart, and the images lose their standing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of crookedness being purged with visible fruit: the altar stones are pulverized, and the groves and images no longer stand. Cleansing reaches what props up the missing and removes its place to stand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Cleansing is not only an invisible change while the structures that sustain the missing remain untouched.
THE ROOT
יְכֻפַּר
yekhuppar
GROWS FROM
כפר
כפר (kāphar) means to cover or make a covering.
The verb translated “purged” comes from כפר, whose seed carries the sense of covering. The verse sets that covering beside a concrete result: the altar stones are broken apart, and its images cannot stand.
ALSO GROWS
kōpher: A covering or ransom.
כֹּפֶר
The same כפר consonants connect the verse’s purging to the image of a covering.
kappōreth: The cover of the ark.
כַּפֹּרֶת
This word makes the covering sense tangible, while Isaiah names the removal that accompanies it.
חַטָּאתוֹ
ḥaṭṭā’tô
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (ḥāṭā’) means to miss or go wrong; it also names sin and guilt.
The word translated “sin” belongs to a family that carries the sense of missing. Isaiah names the fruit of removing that missing as the breaking apart of the altar stones and the loss of the images’ standing.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭā’: To miss, go wrong, or sin.
חָטָא
The verb shares the root consonants and makes the act of missing visible in the word-family.
ḥēt: Sin, a failure or miss.
חֵטְא
This noun carries the same root into the condition the verse says is taken away.
הָסִר
hāsîr
GROWS FROM
סור
סור (sûr) means to turn aside or depart.
The phrase “to take away” comes from a root of turning aside and departing. The verse then shows departure in physical form: the altar stones are shattered, and the images no longer stand.
ALSO GROWS
sûr: To turn aside or depart.
סוּר
These are the root’s basic movements, echoed by the removal named in the verse.
mēsîr: One who removes, or a form meaning removing.
מֵסִיר
It shares the סור consonants and makes explicit the act of causing something to depart.
THE PATTERN
When what sustains false worship is removed, its images lose their standing.
And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.THE THREAD
For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD.Leviticus uses כִּפֶּר (kipper, made covering or atonement), from כפר (kāphar, cover), and joins it to cleansing. Isaiah uses the same root beside the removal of sin and the shattered altar, giving the covering a visible fruit.
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