What Does Isaiah 43:20 Mean in the King James?
The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
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 wild creatures honor God because the water that keeps them alive makes the giver’s weight visible.
THE MEANING
Life in the wilderness is not overlooked: the beasts, dragons, and owls receive water, and their survival gives weight to the giver. The verse speaks to you now from inside thirst: even a place that feels barren is not beyond provision. The chosen people drink from this same gift.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that barren places hold no life to sustain, or that only human voices can honor God.
THE ROOT
יְכַבְּדֻנִי
yekhabbeduni
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to treat as significant.
“honour” in this verse is yekhabbeduni. Here honor carries the sense of making God weighty: the creatures’ survival makes the giver’s weight visible. The root holds weight and esteem together, so the water itself becomes a witness to who gives it.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight or honor; what carries significance.
כָּבוֹד
The same root names God’s weight, joining the creatures’ honor to the weight revealed through provision.
kaved: Heavy or weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the concrete image inside “honour” visible: to honor is to recognize weight.
kibbed: To honor or give weight to.
כִּבֵּד
This verb shows honor as an act of recognizing another’s significance, the response the verse attributes even to wild creatures.
THE PATTERN
Living creation bears witness to its source through provision that reaches its need.
He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.THE THREAD
And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.“Glorify” here comes from כבד (k-b-d), the root behind Isaiah’s “honour,” and carries the same sense of giving weight. Isaiah shows wild creatures reflecting that weight through water received; the psalm shows a delivered person voicing the same response.
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