What Does Isaiah 38:17 Mean in the King James?
Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
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
Here, rescue begins as a clinging love that holds the living soul, while its failures are flung behind God’s back.
THE MEANING
Bitterness is real in your present, yet it does not determine your soul’s destination. Love clings to your living soul and brings it away from the pit; what misses the mark is cast behind God’s back. The image places your failures outside the foreground while wholeness remains possible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that bitterness means wholeness is gone for good and that your failures remain the first thing God sees.
THE ROOT
חָשַׁקְתָּ
chashaqta
GROWS FROM
חשק
To cling, attach oneself, or hold close with desire.
The word rendered “in love” pictures attachment, not a feeling at a distance. Beside the pit, that makes the rescue an image of the living soul being held close even at the edge of ruin.
ALSO GROWS
chashaq: To cling to or set one’s love upon.
חָשַׁק
The same root describes the LORD setting his love upon the reader in Deuteronomy 7:7, making love an act of attachment.
chashuqim: Bands or fillets that bind parts together.
חֲשֻׁקִים
This related form carries the root’s sense of joining and holding, illuminating the attachment in the verse’s “in love.”
הִשְׁלַכְתָּ
hishlakhta
GROWS FROM
שלך
To throw, cast, or hurl.
The Hebrew verb gives the image physical force: the sins are flung behind the back, out of the foreground. The same verb in Micah 7:19 pictures sins cast into the depths of the sea, making their removal decisive and spatial.
ALSO GROWS
vetashlikh: And you will cast.
וְתַשְׁלִיךְ
Micah uses this form for casting sins into the sea, echoing Isaiah’s image of sins thrown away.
hishlikh: He cast or threw.
הִשְׁלִיךְ
In Exodus 15:25, Moses casts a tree into the waters; the word keeps its concrete sense of something being thrown into a new place.
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole, complete, or sound.
The word rendered “peace” grows from the root of wholeness. The verse holds that wholeness and bitterness together: bitterness is real, but it does not cancel the soul’s movement away from the pit.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the wholeness inside “peace” audible, even while the verse names bitterness.
shillem: To make good, repay, or complete what is due.
שִׁלֵּם
This related form carries the root’s sense of bringing something to completion, deepening the contrast between bitterness and wholeness.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness becomes visible as what burdens and accuses the living person is removed from the foreground.
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.THE THREAD
The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:“Set his love upon” uses the same Hebrew root חָשַׁק (chashaq, to cling or attach) as Isaiah’s “in love to my soul.” Together, the verses picture love as attachment that holds a person close, not a reward for being impressive.
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