What Does Isaiah 43:26 Mean in the King James?
Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.
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
“Plead together” makes this a shared hearing, where your spoken account is weighed and rightness is tested.
THE MEANING
Here, God places you in an open hearing: the matter returns to view, the case is heard together, and your account is spoken. The verse does not predeclare you right; it makes speech part of the path by which a claim can be shown right. “Justified” carries the sense of being aligned or vindicated.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being called to account means your voice has no place: here, the summons makes room for your account to be spoken.
THE ROOT
נִשָּׁפְטָה
nishaphtah
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-ṭ
שפט (shaphat): to judge, decide, or govern.
The KJV’s “plead” can sound like begging, but שפט frames the line as a judicial hearing: the case is considered, not merely pleaded emotionally. “Together” keeps the hearing shared.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: Judge; one who renders a decision.
שֹׁפֵט
This branch makes the judicial setting of “plead together” visible.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or a legal decision.
מִשְׁפָּט
It shows that the matter is weighed according to what is right.
סַפֵּר
saper
GROWS FROM
ספר
s-p-r
ספר (saphar): to count or recount; by extension, to tell or record.
The root of “declare” also carries counting and recounting. The verse invites an account to be laid out for examination, not merely a bare proclamation.
ALSO GROWS
mispar: Number or count.
מִסְפָּר
It echoes the root’s sense of accounting for what is there.
sefer: Book or written record.
סֵפֶר
It connects recounting aloud with an account that can be set down and examined.
תִּצְדָּק
titzdaq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
צדק (tsadaq): to be right, just, or vindicated; the language of alignment.
The root names rightness and being in the right; its word family also describes rightness itself and a person recognized as just. “Justified” therefore carries the sense of being shown aligned or vindicated.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice, or alignment.
צֶדֶק
It reveals the condition the hearing tests: whether the claim stands in what is right.
tsaddiq: A just or right person.
צַדִּיק
It shows the root can describe someone recognized as standing in rightness.
THE PATTERN
When a matter is brought into judgment, speech and testimony expose whether the claim stands in rightness.
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.THE THREAD
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?Isaiah’s “plead” comes from שפט (shaphat), the root behind “Judge” in this verse. Genesis names the Judge of all the earth; Isaiah brings that same judicial language into a shared hearing where the addressed person has a place to state an account.
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