What Does Isaiah 47:14 Mean in the King James?
Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it.
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
They cannot snatch their living selves from the flame, and nothing remains afterward that can be turned into warmth.
THE MEANING
The fire consumes them, and they cannot pull their living selves clear of its reach. Afterward, there is no coal for warmth and no fire to sit beside. The image leaves no usable remainder.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that every consuming power leaves a safe part that can be salvaged for comfort.
THE ROOT
יַצִּילוּ
yatsilu
GROWS FROM
נצל
n-ṣ-l
To snatch away, rescue, or pull free from a grasp.
“deliver” in this verse is yatsilu. This verb pictures a forceful pulling free, not escape as an abstract idea. The verse says they cannot snatch their own living selves out of the flame’s reach.
ALSO GROWS
natsal: Rescue, deliver, snatch away.
נָצַל
This is the action the verse negates: no one is pulled clear of the flame.
wəniṣṣaltem: “You shall spoil” or strip away (Exodus 3:22).
וְנִצַּלְתֶּם
The same root can describe stripping something away; here it is the living self that cannot be pulled from the fire.
שְׂרָפָתַם
serafatam
GROWS FROM
שׂרף
ś-r-p
To burn or consume.
The verb translated “burn” shares its root with seraph, a burning one. Here that consuming force leaves no coal behind that can become a source of warmth.
ALSO GROWS
śaraph: Burn, consume.
שָׂרַף
This is the action the fire takes in the verse.
śaraph: Seraph, a burning one (Isaiah 6:2).
שָׂרָף
The shared root gives the image of burning a living form as well as an action.
seraphim: Fiery serpents, literally burning ones (Numbers 21:6).
שְׂרָפִים
This branch keeps the root’s force of burning visible beneath the English word “fire.”
נַפְשָׁם
nafsham
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self: a person as a living being.
The Hebrew names the thing they cannot save as their nefesh, their living soul, the whole living self. English “themselves” can make the target sound generic, while the Hebrew names the living being caught in the flame.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh ḥayyah: Living creature, living soul (Genesis 1:20).
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase names a whole living being, clarifying what cannot be pulled from the fire.
wəyinnāfēsh: And be refreshed (Exodus 23:12).
וְיִנָּפֵשׁ
The same root also appears in a word for being refreshed, a sharp contrast to this verse’s image of burning without any coal left for warmth.
THE PATTERN
What the flame consumes leaves no safe remainder to shelter or warm the one it reaches.
And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.For our God is a consuming fire.THE THREAD
Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:The Hebrew root שׂרף behind “burn” in Isaiah 47:14 also appears in “seraphims,” the burning ones in this verse. Isaiah 47:14 leaves no coal for warmth; Isaiah 6:6 places a live coal beside a seraph, letting the shared root sharpen the difference between the images.
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