What Does Isaiah 36:18 Mean in the King James?
Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
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 verb for “deliver” is first held out as a promise, then turned into the empire’s taunt about whether anyone can rescue you from its grip.
THE MEANING
This verse puts you inside a threat that calls confidence in deliverance Hezekiah’s persuasion, then points to conquered nations as evidence. Its repeated question tries to make the LORD’s promise sound no different from the failed gods of those lands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The defeated nations prove that the LORD cannot deliver you now.
THE ROOT
יַצִּילֵנוּ
yatsilenu
GROWS FROM
נצל
To rescue, deliver, or snatch away from danger or another’s grasp.
The verse repeats forms of the same verb: the LORD “will deliver us,” then the gods are challenged, “have they delivered?” The threat borrows the language of rescue to collapse a promise into a record of failed idols.
ALSO GROWS
yatsilenu: He will deliver us.
יַצִּילֵנוּ
The promised rescue is named with the same root used in the taunt that follows.
hahitsilu: Have they delivered?
הַהִצִּילוּ
The question repeats the root, turning the promise of rescue into a challenge about the nations’ gods.
יַסִּית
yasit
GROWS FROM
סות
To incite, entice, or lure.
“persuade” in this verse is yasit. The warning labels Hezekiah’s words as a lure before the claim is heard. The speaker first defines trust as manipulation, then uses imperial history to make that framing seem credible.
ALSO GROWS
yasit: Incite or entice; here, “persuade.”
יַסִּית
The word casts Hezekiah’s promise as a lure toward misplaced trust.
yesitkha: Entice you, in Deuteronomy 13:6.
יְסִיתְךָ
The same root names the pull of a voice trying to turn someone toward a course of action.
THE PATTERN
The voice of domination makes its control sound final by mocking the possibility of deliverance.
And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.THE THREAD
Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar?The same Hebrew root used twice in the current verse returns in the question about conquered cities. The added place names show how the threat turns a list of defeats into evidence against any possibility of rescue.
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