What Does Isaiah 28:17 Mean in the King James?
Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
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 measure that establishes alignment also exposes every lie pretending to be shelter.
THE MEANING
The standard of judgment exposes what claims to be refuge but is made of lies. When the storm comes, that cover is swept away and the hiding place is flooded.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that concealment can make falsehood safe: a hiding place built on lies cannot hold when it is measured and the waters arrive.
THE ROOT
צְדָקָה
tsedaqah
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
To be right or just; to be aligned with what is right.
The root carries alignment within the word translated “righteousness.” Here that alignment is set against a line and a plummet, so it becomes a measure that tests what claims to offer shelter.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: rightness, justice
צֶדֶק
This branch makes the standard in the verse concrete: justice is what is measured against the line.
tsaddiq: a just or aligned person
צַדִּיק
The same root describes a person in alignment, linking the verse’s standard to the life measured by it.
מִשְׁקֹלֶת
mishqoleth
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
To weigh.
The plummet belongs to the language of weighing: the image is not only a line drawn through space but a weight that reveals alignment. The verse puts justice under a measure that can expose what merely looks secure.
ALSO GROWS
shaqal: to weigh or weigh out
שָׁקַל
This verb reveals the action beneath the plummet: the structure is tested against a real measure.
sheqel: a weight; a unit of weight or coin
שֶׁקֶל
The related word for a measured weight underscores that the verse’s standard is something definite, not an appearance.
כָזָב
kazav
GROWS FROM
כזב
k-z-b
To lie, prove false, or disappoint.
This root can describe both false speech and something that fails. The “refuge of lies” therefore carries its collapse within its name: what shelters through falsehood cannot bear the weight of the measure or the force of the waters.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: to lie, speak falsely, or prove false
כָּזַב
The verb shows the falsehood as an active claim, one that the verse’s measure exposes.
kazav: a lie or falsehood
כָּזָב
This noun names the material of the refuge itself, joining the shelter’s apparent promise to its eventual failure.
THE PATTERN
A true measure exposes false security, and what has no sound foundation collapses under pressure.
A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.THE THREAD
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.The preceding verse names the sure foundation; this verse names the line and plummet that test what is built against it. Together they show the flood exposing whether a shelter rests on what is firm or on falsehood.
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