What Does Isaiah 47:13 Mean in the King James?
Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.
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 measures every prediction by one question: can the seer deliver you from what they see coming?
THE MEANING
You can reach the point where advice has multiplied and still not be safer. Predictions may describe what approaches; they do not, by themselves, deliver you from it. The verse puts the stargazers under that same test: can their sight bring rescue from what is coming?
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough forecasts or expert advice can make the future controllable: seeing what is coming does not itself deliver you from it.
THE ROOT
וְיוֹשִׁיעֻךְ
wəyôšîʿūḵ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring out of danger, or bring into safety.
“save” in this verse is wəyôšîʿūḵ. The word asks for more than a forecast: it asks whether the stargazers can deliver you from what is coming. The same root gives the noun for deliverance, so the verse sets prediction against the power to bring someone out.
ALSO GROWS
yāshaʿ: To deliver, bring out of danger.
יָשַׁע
This verb is the action the verse challenges the stargazers to perform.
yəšûʿāh: Deliverance, rescue.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the outcome their counsel and star-reading are being asked to produce.
הַחֹזִים
haḥōzîm
GROWS FROM
חזה
To see, behold, or perceive a vision.
“stargazers” in this verse is haḥōzîm. The stargazer is named by the act of seeing. That family of words names sight and vision, while the first root names deliverance; the verse keeps those powers distinct.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōzeh: A seer, one who sees visions.
חֹזֶה
The singular form names a person by the very capacity the verse tests: seeing does not by itself rescue.
maḥăzeh: A vision or spectacle.
מַחֲזֶה
This related word shares the root consonants and shows what seeing can produce, a vision or scene, which is still different from deliverance.
THE PATTERN
Knowing what is coming and being able to deliver someone from it are distinct powers.
Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.THE THREAD
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.Isaiah’s וְיוֹשִׁיעֻךְ (wəyôšîʿūḵ, “and let them deliver you”) and Exodus’s יְשׁוּעַת (yəšûʿat, “deliverance of”) share the root יָשַׁע (yāshaʿ, “deliver”). Exodus presents that deliverance as something shown “to day,” while Isaiah asks whether foreknowledge can produce rescue when danger arrives.
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