What Does Isaiah 29:21 Mean in the King James?
That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.
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 word that makes a person guilty can itself become the trap that keeps truth from being heard.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a living mechanism: speech is turned into a charge, the person who names wrongdoing is trapped, and the upright are bent toward emptiness. In this pattern, accusation distorts judgment until telling the truth becomes costly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a charge becomes true simply because it is attached to someone’s words, or that public rebuke proves the rebuker is guilty.
THE ROOT
מַחֲטִיאֵי
maḥăṭîʾê
GROWS FROM
חטא
miss; go astray
“offender” in this verse is maḥăṭîʾê. The form here is causative: these people make a person miss by a word. The root holds the miss together with the act of causing it, revealing how accusation can be used to distort someone’s standing.
ALSO GROWS
chet: missing
חֵטְא
This branch names the miss itself; Isaiah’s wording makes its cause explicit, a word used to make someone miss.
chatta't: missing; also an offering for the missing
חַטָּאת
This branch keeps the idea of missing concrete, while the verse shows how speech can turn that miss into a charge against someone.
heḥĕṭîʾ: cause to miss
הֶחֱטִיא
This causative form makes the verse’s mechanism plain: a person can be made an offender through the use of a word.
THE PATTERN
Injustice controls judgment by turning truthful speech into grounds for accusation and twisting the upright toward emptiness.
Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.THE THREAD
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.Genesis uses חַטָּאת (chatta’t, missing) for what lies at the door; Isaiah uses the same root in a causative form, making a person miss through a word. One verse pictures the miss at an entrance, while the other shows speech turning the gate of judgment into a trap.
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