What Does Isaiah 51:2 Mean in the King James?
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.
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 Hebrew calls Abraham אֶחָד (echad, one), while his name is explained as “father of many nations”: the promise is already hidden in the movement from one to many.
THE MEANING
This verse places you inside a story that begins with one: Abraham is called אֶחָד (echad, one), blessed, and made many, while Sarah is named as the one who bore the people addressed. Your present identity carries an origin whose reach exceeds the size of its beginning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A beginning that is only one cannot become a people.
THE ROOT
וְאַרְבֵּהוּ
ve'arbehu
GROWS FROM
רבה
ravah
To become many, grow numerous, or increase.
This root also gives רַב (rav, many or great) and הִרְבָּה (hirbah, made many or increased). Abraham is called as one, then the verb opens into multitude: the increase is a becoming-many.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Many; great.
רַב
The same root links increase directly to the state of being many.
hirbah: He made many; he increased.
הִרְבָּה
This causative form shows the movement from one person to a multitude.
וַאֲבָרְכֵהוּ
va'avarkhehu
GROWS FROM
ברך
barakh
To bless; the same root also names the knee.
“blessed” in this verse is va'avarkhehu. The word for blessing shares its root with the word for knee. In the verse, blessing stands between the call and the increase, carrying a bodily image within the promise.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root gives blessing an embodied connection to the bent knee.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This noun makes the root’s blessing sense explicit.
קְרָאתִיו
qerativ
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call, summon, name, or proclaim.
The root of “called” also appears in מִקְרָא (miqra, reading or assembly). A call can name one person and also gather a people, fitting the verse’s movement from one to many.
ALSO GROWS
qara: Call, summon, name, or proclaim.
קָרָא
The root keeps naming and summoning together in the phrase “I called him.”
miqra: Reading or assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how a call can extend beyond one person and gather others.
THE PATTERN
What begins as one under God’s call expands into many through blessing.
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.THE THREAD
And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.Isaiah’s “increased him” and Genesis’s “multiply thee” use the same root, רבה (ravah, increase or become many). The repeated root makes the movement clear: the one called is the one made numerous.
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