What Does Isaiah 41:22 Mean in the King James?
Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.
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 verse makes the future evidence: a power that claims to know it must name what is coming, where the heart can weigh its word against what arrives.
THE MEANING
Any power claiming divine sight faces a plain test: show what has happened and declare what is still coming. The heart is set to weigh the claim, and the future is treated as what actually arrives, not as a vague promise. The claim stands or falls by what it reveals.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Authority is not proof of foresight: a voice’s certainty does not make its prediction true.
THE ROOT
אַחֲרִיתָן
ʾaḥarītān
GROWS FROM
אחר
ʾ-ḥ-r
after, behind
The word for their “latter end” carries the sense of what comes after. The verse asks for more than a claim about what is coming: it asks what follows and can be known in its outcome.
ALSO GROWS
ʾaḥar: after, behind
אַחַר
The same root places the end in relation to what comes before it.
ʾaḥarōn: last, latter
אַחֲרוֹן
This branch reinforces that the verse is looking toward what comes afterward.
הַבָּאוֹת
habbāʾōt
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
come, enter
“things for to come” in this verse is habbāʾōt. The coming things are named as things that arrive. The verse makes a prediction answerable to events as they enter the reader’s experience.
ALSO GROWS
bōʾ: to come, enter
בּוֹא
This is the verb behind the verse’s picture of future events as arrivals.
māvōʾ: entrance, approach
מָבוֹא
This related word keeps the sense of something coming into view or entering.
וְנָשִׂימָה לִבֵּנוּ
wenāśīmāh libbēnū
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
put, place, set
“That we may consider” is expressed as setting the heart. Discernment here is directed attention: the claim is placed before the heart to be weighed.
ALSO GROWS
śām: he set, placed
שָׂם
This form makes the root’s concrete sense of placing clear.
śīmū lēv: set the heart, attend
שִׂימוּ לֵב
This related phrase shows how setting something in the heart means giving it focused attention.
THE PATTERN
A claim to know what is coming becomes testable when its words meet the events that arrive.
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.THE THREAD
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.Isaiah’s אַחֲרִית (ʾaḥarīt, afterpart or end) shares its root with the word for “end” here. Both verses draw attention to what follows: what a voice announces becomes clearer in its outcome.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us