What Does Isaiah 30:23 Mean in the King James?
Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.
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 same Hebrew root names both seed and sowing, revealing provision as a living cycle: rain opens the planted earth into bread and spacious pasture.
THE MEANING
Rain reaches the seed you sow into the ground, the earth yields bread, and your cattle feed in broad pastures. Human nourishment and animal life belong to one unfolding field of abundance. Bread and grazing space belong to the same measure of plenty.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or scatter seed; the same root gives the noun for seed and the verb for sowing.
“seed / sow” in this verse is zeraʿ. The verse uses זֶרַע (zeraʿ, seed) and תִּזְרַע (tizraʿ, you sow), joining what is planted to the act of planting. Rain opens the seed’s capacity into bread, while the seed-and-sowing root keeps the beginning of that provision visible.
ALSO GROWS
zeraʿ: Seed; also offspring or descendants.
זֶרַע
The word links what is planted in the ground with life carried forward.
tizraʿ: You sow.
תִּזְרַע
It shares the seed root, joining the planted thing to the act that places it in the soil.
נִרְחָב
nirḥav
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be wide, broad, or spacious.
“large” in this verse is nirḥav. The pasture is נִרְחָב (nirḥav, broad or spacious), from רחב (r-ḥ-b, to widen). The image of plenty includes room to range: the cattle feed in open space.
ALSO GROWS
raḥav: To be wide or become spacious.
רָחַב
This verb makes the pasture’s breadth an active quality of the scene.
merḥav: A broad place or open space.
מֶרְחָב
The related noun carries the same sense of room that appears in the cattle’s pasture.
THE PATTERN
Provision is a cycle in which rain nourishes what is sown, the earth supplies food, and living creatures receive room to thrive.
That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;)THE THREAD
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:Isaiah 55:10 repeats the זרע (z-r-ʿ) root in “seed” and “sower,” alongside the same sequence of water, earth, seed, and bread. The seed that feeds the present also carries the next sowing within it.
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