What Does Isaiah 5:20 Mean in the King James?
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
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 corruption begins when discernment is reset, so harm can be named good and bitterness made to seem sweet.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks whenever a voice calls what harms good and what is good harmful. It traces that reversal beyond moral language into sight and taste: darkness stands as light, and bitterness as sweetness. The scale of judgment has shifted until the opposite can seem natural.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling something good makes it good, or that what feels sweet must be good. The names and sensations of right and wrong can be reversed while the reality beneath them remains.
THE ROOT
שָׂמִים
śāmîm
GROWS FROM
שׂים
śîm
To put, set, place, or assign.
“put” in this verse is śāmîm. The verse repeats this verb for darkness in place of light and bitterness in place of sweetness. Its language depicts an active substitution: one thing is assigned the place and value of another.
ALSO GROWS
śûm: To put or set.
שׂוּם
This verb form shares the root behind the verse’s repeated act of placing one quality in the other’s position.
vesamtem: And you shall place or set.
וְשַׂמְתֶּם
This form shows the root can describe setting something in a particular position, echoing Isaiah’s picture of values being assigned to the wrong place.
רַע
raʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
rāʿaʿ
To be bad or to act harmfully.
“evil” in this verse is raʿ. This word’s range includes both moral badness and harm. The reversal therefore reaches beyond a disagreement over labels: what injures can be given the name of what is good.
ALSO GROWS
rāʿaʿ: To act wickedly or do harm.
רָעַע
The verb makes the harmful dimension of the word’s family visible beneath Isaiah’s moral contrast.
rōaʿ: Badness, evil, or harm.
רֹעַ
This noun shares the root and keeps moral wrongness connected to the harm it brings.
מַר
mar
GROWS FROM
מרר
To be bitter or make bitter.
“bitter” in this verse is mar. Isaiah carries the reversal into taste, where bitterness and sweetness are felt rather than merely named. The sensory contrast shows how the inversion can reach what seems desirable or unpleasant.
ALSO GROWS
mar: Bitter.
מַר
This is the word Isaiah places against sweet, making the reversal tangible to the senses.
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
This related form preserves bitterness as a concrete taste, underscoring the passage’s sensory image.
THE PATTERN
When discernment is inverted, harm is endorsed as good and what is right is condemned.
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.THE THREAD
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.Genesis uses the same Hebrew word אוֹר (ʾôr, light) that Isaiah names in the exchange; there, light is recognized as good and distinguished from darkness. Isaiah’s warning reverses that ordering: the same categories remain, but their placement and value are switched.
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