What Does Isaiah 5:10 Mean in the King James?
Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
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
A full homer of seed returns only one ephah, a tenth-sized harvest that makes the collapse measurable.
THE MEANING
A field can be wide and the measure of seed full while what comes back stays painfully small. Ten yokes of vineyard yield one bath; one homer of seed yields one ephah. The gap between input and fruit is a real form of constriction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a larger field or heavier sowing must guarantee a proportionate return.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; the root joins the planted seed with the act of planting.
English separates the seed from the sowing, but Hebrew holds them in one root-family. The same root also names offspring, so the measure contains the potential for more life even as this harvest contracts.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To scatter or plant seed.
זָרַע
The seed in the verse is not detached from the act that put it into the ground; both belong to the same root.
zeraʿ: Seed, or the descendants that grow from it.
זֶרַע
The word can carry the promise of multiplication, making the tiny return feel like potential narrowed.
צִמְדֵי
tsimdei
GROWS FROM
צמד
ts-m-d
To join, bind, or pair; צֶמֶד names a pair or yoke.
The KJV’s “acres” hides a measure pictured through a yoke of oxen and the land it can plow. The verse counts ten such working measures, then sets their meager return beside them.
ALSO GROWS
tsemed: A joined pair; also a yoke of oxen and the area it plows.
צֶמֶד
The vineyard’s scale is measured through paired labor, not as an abstract expanse.
tsāmad: To be joined or attached.
צָמַד
The root’s image of things bound together echoes the yoke in the measure, while the yield remains painfully small.
THE PATTERN
When fruitfulness is constricted, plentiful sowing can yield only a fraction.
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.THE THREAD
Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the LORD blessed him.Isaiah’s “seed” and Genesis’s “sowed” share the Hebrew root זרע (zāraʿ, sow or seed), holding the planted thing and the act of planting in one word-family. Genesis shows that root bearing a hundredfold; beside it, Isaiah’s fraction makes the loss of fruitfulness stark.
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