What Does Isaiah 32:19 Mean in the King James?
When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low 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
Hebrew repeats one root for “low” as both the city’s descent and the ground where it ends up.
THE MEANING
The world around you can be struck: hail comes down on the forest, and the city is lowered into a low place. The repeated Hebrew root makes the city’s descent emphatic. The verse holds public devastation in view without hiding it behind an image of peace.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A promise of peace does not mean every structure stays standing; this vision places settled dwelling and the city’s collapse side by side.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׁפַּל
tishpal
GROWS FROM
שפל
To be low, be brought down, or be humbled.
“low / low place” in this verse is tishpal. English separates “low” from “low place,” but Hebrew uses the same root for both: the city is tishpal, brought low, in the shephelah, the lowland. The word echo makes the city’s lowered state and its setting part of one image.
ALSO GROWS
shafel: Low, humble.
שָׁפֵל
This adjective shares the root that describes the city’s descent, linking physical lowliness with being brought down.
hishpil: To bring low or abase.
הִשְׁפִּיל
This causative form makes explicit the lowering that the verse presents as happening to the city.
shephelah: Lowland.
שְׁפֵלָה
The verse uses this form for the low place where the city is brought down.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts upheaval by lowering what stands high and reordering the landscape.
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.THE THREAD
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:“Made low” uses the same Hebrew root שפל as Isaiah 32:19. Here the root reshapes mountains and hills, opening the city’s lowering into a wider image of the landscape being reordered.
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