What Does Isaiah 41:12 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.
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
“Nought” also names an ending: the opposition that cannot be found has reached its limit.
THE MEANING
Those who contend with you do not hold permanent power over your life. Their opposition reaches its end so completely that, when sought, it cannot be found, reduced to absence and nothingness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your opponents’ present force is permanent and will always define your life.
THE ROOT
אֶפֶס
efes
GROWS FROM
אפס
ʾ-p-s
To cease or come to an end; as a noun, an end or extremity, and hence nothingness.
The word translated “nought” carries both nothingness and an ending. Joined to “nothing,” it pictures opposition losing its substance and reaching its limit.
ALSO GROWS
efes: Nothing, a nonentity.
אֶפֶס
This is the word Isaiah uses for what the opposition becomes.
afsei arets: The ends or extremities of the earth.
אַפְסֵי־אָרֶץ
The same word can name an outer limit, giving “nought” the added sense of opposition brought to its furthest edge.
THE PATTERN
What stands against you is not ultimate; its force can pass until only absence remains.
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?THE THREAD
All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.Isaiah 40:17 places the same word אֶפֶס (efes, “nothing”) beside אַיִן (ayin, “nothing”), as this verse does. The parallel opens the image wider: what seems to stand against you is measured against a scale on which even nations become insubstantial.
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