What Does Isaiah 36:6 Mean in the King James?
Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
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 broken reed turns the very hand that leans on it into the place where its failure is felt.
THE MEANING
Your trust is weight placed somewhere for support. When that support is already fractured, leaning on it turns its break into a wound in the hand that depends on it. The verse names false security by what it does under pressure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that something is safe simply because it is being used as support. Its condition matters: a broken source of security passes its fracture into the one who leans on it.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁעֶנֶת
mish'enet
GROWS FROM
ש־ע־ן
sh-ʿ-n
To lean on or rely on; support.
“staff” in this verse is mish'enet. The object’s name grows from the act of leaning: it is a lean-on, a support. Its brokenness turns that expected support into a sharp point in the hand that depends on it.
ALSO GROWS
sha'an: To lean on; rely on.
שָׁעַן
The action of relying and the staff named as support share this root, tying the object directly to the dependence placed on it.
mish'en: Support; stay.
מִשְׁעָן
This related support word makes the reed’s intended role explicit: it is meant to hold weight, which makes its broken state consequential.
בָּטַחְתָּ
batachta
GROWS FROM
ב־ט־ח
b-ṭ-ḥ
To trust, feel secure, or place confidence.
“trustest” in this verse is batachta. The family of בָּטַחְתָּ includes בֶּטַח (betach, security) and מִבְטָח (mivtach, confidence or refuge): trust names where security is located. Here that location is pictured as a reed carrying a person’s weight.
ALSO GROWS
betach: Security; safely.
בֶּטַח
This branch brings out the security contained in trust, which the broken reed proves unable to provide.
mivtach: Confidence; refuge.
מִבְטָח
This related word names a place of confidence or refuge, sharpening the verse’s question of whether the chosen support can actually shelter the one relying on it.
THE PATTERN
A support’s true nature appears when someone places weight on it.
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.THE THREAD
And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.Ezekiel uses the same noun מִשְׁעֶנֶת (mish’enet, staff or support), from שען (sha’an, to lean on). The shared root makes the image sharper: Egypt is named as support precisely where the text shows the failure of leaning on it, with damage carried into the bodies that hold on.
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