What Does Isaiah 43:4 Mean in the King James?
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.
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 calls you precious, then names humanity itself as the exchange for your living soul.
THE MEANING
The verse names you as precious in the speaker’s sight, weighty, and loved. It then speaks of humankind and peoples being given in exchange for your living soul. Affection and an unsettling cost stand together in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you are unseen or expendable: the verse names you precious, honored, and loved.
THE ROOT
יָקַרְתָּ
yaqartā
GROWS FROM
יקר
y-q-r
To be precious, costly, or rare.
“precious” in this verse is yaqartā. Yaqar carries costliness and rarity alongside affection. The verse places that valuation directly beside an exchange of peoples, so its declaration of worth bears the unsettling weight of the sentence itself.
ALSO GROWS
yaqar: Precious, costly, valuable.
יָקָר
This is the word used for the person addressed: their worth is stated directly.
yeqar: Preciousness, value, honor.
יְקָר
The noun form keeps value and honor within the same word family as “precious.”
נִכְבַּדְתָּ
nikhbadta
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
The root of “honourable” carries the sense of weight. Alongside yaqar, the verse describes you as both costly in value and weighty in regard.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, honor, glory.
כָּבוֹד
The familiar word for honor and glory preserves the root’s sense of weight.
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the physical sense inside “honourable” visible: the person addressed carries weight.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
Humanity as ground-being, linked with אֲדָמָה (adamah), ground or soil.
The KJV’s “men” is adam, humanity, a word linked with adamah, the ground. The sentence names human beings themselves as what is given, making the cost concrete.
ALSO GROWS
adam: Human being, humanity; the ground-being.
אָדָם
This is the word in the verse, naming human beings as the exchange.
adamah: Ground, soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared word-family connects humanity with the ground from which it is formed.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes love visible by naming the weight assigned to a life and the cost borne for it.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.THE THREAD
Then said Saul, I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.The same two Hebrew roots sit beneath both lines: yaqar, “precious,” and nefesh, “living soul.” In Samuel, Saul says his living soul was precious in David’s eyes; Isaiah places the same valuation beside peoples given for the addressed person’s living soul.
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