What Does Isaiah 33:8 Mean in the King James?

The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.

Isaiah 33:8 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The collapse reaches beyond empty roads: the word for “regardeth” asks whether a human being is even counted.

THE MEANING

Your shared world depends on more than roads and buildings: it depends on promises kept and people counted. Here the highways go empty, the covenant lies broken, the cities are rejected, and no human being is considered. The verse names collapse as the loss of passage, trust, and recognition.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a society can remain intact while its agreements are broken and its people are treated as if they do not count.

THE ROOT

חָשַׁב

chashav

GROWS FROM

חשב

to think, devise, reckon, or account

“regardeth” in this verse is chashav. English “regard” can sound like mere attention; ⁨חָשַׁב⁩ carries the work of thinking and reckoning. The verse says that in this collapse no human is considered or counted.

ALSO GROWS

machashavah: thought, plan, or intention

מַחֲשָׁבָה

A person’s plans and thoughts grow from the same root as the act of considering them.

cheshbon: account or calculation

חֶשְׁבּוֹן

This branch makes the verse’s “regardeth no man” sound like a refusal to count anyone.

עֹבֵר

over

GROWS FROM

עבר

to pass through or cross over

The “wayfaring man” is literally a passer, from the root for crossing or passing through. The shutdown is relational: the road no longer carries a person across it.

ALSO GROWS

ever: the other side or beyond

עֵבֶר

The word for “beyond” comes from the same root of passing across that names the traveler.

ma'avar: passage or crossing

מַעֲבָר

This branch names the very passage that disappears when the wayfarer ceases.

שָׁבַת

shavat

GROWS FROM

שבת

to cease, stop, or rest from activity

English treats “ceaseth” as a dead stop, while ⁨שבת⁩ also names cessation as Sabbath. Here the road’s forced silence is not restful, but the shared root holds both the end of motion and the possibility of appointed rest.

ALSO GROWS

shabbat: Sabbath, a day of cessation and rest

שַׁבָּת

The Sabbath name grows from the same root as the wayfarer’s ceasing.

shabbaton: a Sabbath rest or cessation

שַׁבָּתוֹן

This branch echoes the root’s range from stopping to a designated time of rest.

THE PATTERN

When trust is broken, public life loses its routes, its justice, and its regard for people.

In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways.

Judges 5:6 · KJVThe public roads empty when shared life becomes unsafe and ordinary passage gives way to detours.

And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

Isaiah 59:14 · KJVJustice and truth withdraw from public space, echoing the emptied routes and broken regard in this verse.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Matthew 24:12 · KJVAs wrongdoing spreads, care between people cools, echoing a world where no one is counted.

THE THREAD

LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!

Psalm 144:3 · KJV

Isaiah says no human is reckoned; this psalm uses the same root, ⁨חשב⁩, to ask how a human is reckoned by God. The shared verb opens a contrast between a world that stops counting people and the regard that does.

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