What Does Isaiah 36:10 Mean in the King James?
And am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? the LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
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 verse exposes how the name of God can be invoked to make destruction sound like obedience.
THE MEANING
You hear destruction defended with the claim, “the LORD said unto me.” The verse places that claim beside the ruin it would authorize, showing that a speaker’s appeal to divine authority is not proof of its source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that invoking God’s name makes a destructive purpose God’s own.
THE ROOT
לְהַשְׁחִיתָהּ
lehashchitah
GROWS FROM
שחת
sh-ch-t
To ruin, spoil, or corrupt; here, to bring it to ruin.
The Hebrew root behind “destroy” also describes corruption: the word carries the sense of ruining what is whole. English can make destruction sound like a separate act, but this root joins it to the wider work of spoiling and corrupting.
ALSO GROWS
nishchatah: Was corrupted, ruined
נִשְׁחָתָה
The same root describes the earth as corrupt in Genesis 6:11, connecting destruction with the spread of ruin.
hamashchit: The destroyer
הַמַּשְׁחִית
This branch names an agent of ruin, showing that the verse’s destruction belongs to a family of words about bringing things to ruin.
THE PATTERN
A voice’s claim to speak for God is discerned by its source and truth, not established by invoking God’s name.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.THE THREAD
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.The Hebrew word translated “destroy” in Isaiah comes from שחת (shachat), the same root rendered “was corrupt” here. The shared root joins destruction to corruption and the spread of violence: both are forms of ruin.
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