What Does Isaiah 57:6 Mean in the King James?
Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion; they, they are thy lot: even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these?
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 same Hebrew consonants echo in “smooth stones” and “your portion,” making the objects you worship sound bound to the share you have chosen.
THE MEANING
The smooth stones are named as your portion and lot, and your drink and grain offerings are poured out to them. The final question presses into the present: can what receives your devotion return comfort when you need it?
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that devotion makes its object able to comfort you: pouring out offerings cannot make the stones answer.
THE ROOT
חַלְּקֵי
ḥalləqê
GROWS FROM
ח־ל־ק
Hebrew forms with these consonants carry senses of sharing or portion and of smoothness; here they create a striking sound echo.
“smooth stones / portion” in this verse is ḥalləqê. The verse repeats the same consonantal shape in “smooth stones” and “your portion,” so the stones’ polished surfaces echo the share assigned to the worshipper. The wordplay links the chosen object with the worshipper’s lot without collapsing their distinct senses.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēleq: Share, portion, or allotted part.
חֵלֶק
This is the word used for “thy portion,” naming what the worshipper has taken as her share.
ḥālāq: Smooth or slippery.
חָלָק
This sense describes the stones, whose smoothness is sounded beside the worshipper’s portion.
אֶנָּחֵם
ʾennāḥēm
GROWS FROM
נ־ח־ם
n-ḥ-m
To comfort or console; in some Hebrew forms, to be comforted or to relent.
The closing verb asks whether comfort, or a changed response, can come from this arrangement. The question exposes the distance between pouring out devotion and receiving consolation.
ALSO GROWS
niḥam: Be comforted; relent.
נִחַם
This form holds consolation and a changed response within the same word-family as the question at the verse’s end.
neḥāmāh: Consolation or comfort.
נֶחָמָה
This noun makes the emotional sense of the final question explicit: can these offerings bring consolation?
נֶסֶךְ
nēsekh
GROWS FROM
נ־ס־ך
n-s-k
To pour out; also to pour molten metal into a mold.
The root behind “drink offering” also appears in the word for a cast metal image. The verse’s poured libation and its objects of devotion thus meet within a word-family of pouring, whether liquid is poured out or metal is shaped in a mold.
ALSO GROWS
nēsekh: A libation or drink offering.
נֶסֶךְ
This is the offering poured to the stones in the verse.
massēkhāh: A cast metal image.
מַסֵּכָה
Its shared root connects pouring an offering with pouring metal to make an image.
THE PATTERN
What becomes your portion gathers your devotion and reveals whether it can sustain you.
For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.THE THREAD
The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.Psalm 16:5 uses the same “portion” and “lot” language, but names the LORD in the place Isaiah 57:6 gives to smooth stones. That shared wording opens the question of what can truly hold the share and devotion poured into it.
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