What Does Isaiah 57:13 Mean in the King James?
When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;
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 verse turns rescue into a question of where you shelter: gathered allies scatter, while refuge in God becomes an inheritance.
THE MEANING
The supports you gather cannot deliver you when the cry comes; the wind carries them away like vapor. The one who takes refuge in God receives a lasting place: the land and the mountain set apart to God become an inheritance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that multiplying allies or protections can make you secure. A gathered defense can disappear when the cry comes; refuge in God leads to an inheritance that lasts.
THE ROOT
הַחֹסֶה
haḥōseh
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ה
ḥ-s-h
To seek shelter or take refuge.
The word rendered “trust” carries the image of seeking shelter in God. The promise becomes spatial: this refuge opens into an inherited place, the land and the set-apart mountain.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsāh: To take refuge, seek shelter.
חָסָה
This is the verb behind the person who “putteth his trust” in God.
maḥseh: Refuge, shelter.
מַחְסֶה
The same root names the shelter itself, making trust a place of protection as well as a posture of reliance.
קִבּוּצַיִךְ
qibbūṣayikh
GROWS FROM
ק־ב־ץ
q-b-ts
To gather, collect, assemble.
The Hebrew word rendered “companies” pictures gathered collections. That creates a sharp movement in the verse: what is assembled around you still cannot stay assembled when the wind carries it away.
ALSO GROWS
qāvaṣ: To gather, collect, assemble.
קָבַץ
This verb’s action is inside the noun rendered “companies”: they are things gathered together.
qibbūṣ: A gathering, collection, assembly.
קִבּוּץ
This noun makes the gathered group itself visible, even as the verse shows it being carried away.
רוּחַ
rûaḥ
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
Wind, breath, moving air.
Here the word names the wind that carries the companies away; elsewhere the same word names breath. Hebrew keeps those meanings joined, linking the air that moves around you with the air moving through you.
ALSO GROWS
rûaḥ: Wind, moving air.
רוּחַ
This is the force that carries the gathered companies away in the verse.
rûaḥ: Breath, air moving through a living body.
רוּחַ
The same word for wind also names breath, preserving a connection English renders with separate words.
THE PATTERN
Gathered powers scatter under pressure, while those grounded in refuge remain to inherit what endures.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.THE THREAD
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.The Hebrew phrase behind “putteth his trust” in Isaiah and “put their trust” in this psalm comes from the same root for taking refuge. Isaiah shows one person sheltering in God; the psalm opens that same posture to a whole company of those who take refuge.
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