What Does Isaiah 40:16 Mean in the King James?
And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
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
Even Lebanon’s forest and wildlife, offered in full, cannot measure the worth of the One receiving them.
THE MEANING
The verse sets Lebanon’s immense store of trees and creatures before God and calls it still insufficient. Even the world’s fuel and living abundance cannot make an offering equal to the Creator’s worth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough natural wealth or sacrifice can make an offering adequate to the scale of God.
THE ROOT
עוֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, rise, ascend
The word translated “burnt offering” carries the sense of something that rises. Even the smoke rising from all Lebanon’s wood and beasts does not make the offering sufficient.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb behind the offering makes its upward movement explicit.
ʿăliyyāh: ascent; upper chamber
עֲלִיָּה
The same root names an ascent or an upper place, keeping the image of rising visible.
ʿōleh: one who goes up; ascending
עוֹלֶה
This form shows the root’s continuing sense of going upward.
חַיָּתוֹ
ḥayyātô
GROWS FROM
חיה
to live, remain alive
The word translated “beasts” grows from the root for living. Lebanon’s creatures are its living ones, and even that abundance of life is not enough for the offering.
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: living, alive
חַי
It makes the root’s basic sense plain: these are beings that live.
ḥayyim: life
חַיִּים
The same root names life itself, widening the verse’s image beyond a stock of animals.
ḥayyāh: living creature
חַיָּה
This form names a creature as a living being, the sense carried in “beasts.”
THE PATTERN
No abundance drawn from creation can supply or contain the Creator.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;THE THREAD
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?Micah uses the same word עֹלוֹת (ʿōlōt), “burnt offerings,” from עלה (ʿālāh), “to rise.” Its question opens Isaiah’s image further: increasing the number of offerings does not make their rising sufficient.
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