What Does Isaiah 50:3 Mean in the King James?
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
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 darkness is not beyond the Speaker’s reach; it is a garment the heavens are clothed in.
THE MEANING
The sky above you can wear darkness like sackcloth, and the verse pictures that covering as held within the Speaker’s power. Even when the world looks shrouded in grief, its darkness is not outside the reach of the One speaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a darkened world has slipped beyond God’s reach: here, the Speaker clothes the heavens in darkness.
THE ROOT
קַדְרוּת
qadrut
GROWS FROM
קדר
q-d-r
To grow dark or become dusky; also, to mourn.
The Hebrew word for blackness comes from a root also used for mourning. The sky is not merely dim; it is pictured as wearing grief.
ALSO GROWS
qādar: To grow dark; to mourn.
קָדַר
Joel 2:10 uses this root for the sun and moon growing dark, joining the heavens’ darkness with the language of mourning.
qadrut: Blackness or darkness.
קַדְרוּת
This is the form used here, giving the heavens a covering that carries the root’s association with mourning.
אַלְבִּישׁ
albish
GROWS FROM
לבש
l-b-sh
To put on or clothe.
“clothe” in this verse is albish. The verse presents the heavens as something dressed: darkness is not just in the sky but put upon it as a garment. The same root can describe a person wearing clothing, so the cosmic scene takes on the shape of a body clothed in grief.
ALSO GROWS
levush: A garment or clothing.
לְבוּשׁ
The noun makes the garment image explicit: what is put on can become the visible covering of the one who wears it.
malbush: Apparel or clothing.
מַלְבּוּשׁ
This related form keeps the focus on clothing as a covering, echoing the heavens’ sackcloth.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays the darkening of the sky as a visible sign of decisive divine intervention.
And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.THE THREAD
The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:Isaiah’s “blackness” and Joel’s “shall be dark” come from the same root, קדר (q-d-r), meaning to grow dark and also to mourn. That shared root lets the sky’s darkness carry the language of grief.
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