What Does Isaiah 34:6 Mean in the King James?
The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.
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
A sound echo between זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice) and טֶבַח (ṭeḇaḥ, slaughter) makes the verse’s ritual offering and mass killing ring together.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you with the LORD’s judgment as blood-soaked slaughter: the sword is filled with blood and fat, and lambs, goats, and rams are named in the scene. Its closing words call the violence a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in Edom, holding ritual offering and killing together in one image.
THE ROOT
טֶבַח
ṭeḇaḥ
GROWS FROM
טבח
To slaughter or butcher; the root also carries the work of preparing meat.
The word for the great slaughter belongs to a root that can name both killing and the handling of meat. Here, the sound of טֶבַח (ṭeḇaḥ, slaughter) echoes זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice), drawing the violence and the offering into close hearing while keeping them as distinct roots.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāḇaḥ: To kill an animal for meat or slaughter.
טָבַח
This verb makes the passage’s slaughter concrete: bodies are killed, not merely caught in an abstract image of judgment.
ṭabbāḥ: One who prepares meat, butchers, or carries out executions.
טַבָּח
The branch joins the slaughter in the verse to the work done with what has been killed, keeping the image bodily and stark.
זֶבַח
zebaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter as an offering; the root names the act and its sacrificial setting.
The LORD’s זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice) is placed beside טֶבַח (ṭeḇaḥ, slaughter), whose final two consonants match and whose sound closely echoes it. The pairing lets the ritual word carry the full force of the killing rather than hiding it.
ALSO GROWS
zāḇaḥ: To kill an animal as an offering.
זָבַח
The verb exposes the physical act inside the English noun “sacrifice,” which the verse places directly beside its slaughter imagery.
mizbēaḥ: The place associated with sacrifice.
מִזְבֵּחַ
This related word shows how the root extends from killing as an offering to the setting where that offering is made.
אֱדוֹם
ʾĔḏôm
GROWS FROM
אדמ
Red or ruddy.
Edom’s name means “red,” and the name meets a scene saturated with blood. The land’s name makes the color of the verse’s violence resonate without softening its literal force.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red.
אָדֹם
This adjective carries the color embedded in the name Edom, which stands at the close of the slaughter scene.
admoni: Ruddy or reddish.
אַדְמוֹנִי
This related form keeps the name’s red coloring audible beside the verse’s blood-filled image.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts divine judgment through weapons and slaughter that reach bodies and nations.
I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.THE THREAD
For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.Jeremiah uses the same זֶבַח (zebaḥ, sacrifice) for the LORD’s judgment and describes a sword satiated and drunk with blood. The repeated pairing shows sacrificial language carrying the force of lethal judgment.
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