What Does Isaiah 3:11 Mean in the King James?
Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
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 hands shape the recompense that returns to them.
THE MEANING
The verse sets a severe reciprocity before you now: the harm of the wicked returns to him as the due of his own hands. What reaches him bears the mark of what his hands have done.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wrongdoing can be hidden away and leave its maker untouched: what the hands do comes back as their recompense.
THE ROOT
גְּמוּל
gemul
GROWS FROM
גמל
G-M-L
To deal fully, requite, or render what is due.
“reward” in this verse is gemul. גְּמוּל (gemul, recompense) can name what is rendered back, whether good or ill. The verse ties what reaches the wicked to what his hands have done: the return carries the shape of the action.
ALSO GROWS
gāmal: To deal with, requite, or repay.
גָּמַל
This verb names the act of rendering treatment back, tying recompense to what the hands have done.
gemul: Recompense; what is rendered.
גְּמוּל
Psalm 28:4 uses this noun for the “desert” rendered according to the work of people’s hands, making the same hand-to-return link explicit.
THE PATTERN
What a person sets in motion returns to that person in a form shaped by the act.
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.The shared Hebrew word גְּמוּל (gemul, recompense) appears in Isaiah as “reward” and in this Psalm as “desert.” The Psalm makes the connection visible: what is rendered to them is measured against the work of their hands.
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