What Does Isaiah 58:7 Mean in the King James?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
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 word behind “deal” pictures bread being divided into portions, so care begins when provision is opened to another’s hunger.
THE MEANING
The verse makes care visible: bread is portioned for hunger, the cast-out are brought inside, and nakedness is covered. It calls the vulnerable person “your own flesh,” binding their need to the reader’s own embodied life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that compassion can remain an inward feeling while the hungry, cast-out, or exposed remain outside the door.
THE ROOT
פָרֹס
paros
GROWS FROM
פרס
To split, divide, or portion.
“deal” in this verse is paros. The Hebrew verb pictures bread being split or portioned. The same consonants appear in the Torah’s language for a divided hoof, making the sharing here concrete: provision is opened into portions for another’s hunger.
ALSO GROWS
mafereset: Parting or splitting the hoof.
מַפְרֶסֶת
Leviticus 11:3 uses this form from פרס for an animal that parts its hoof, echoing the division in the verse’s act of sharing bread.
parsah: Hoof.
פַּרְסָה
Appearing alongside מַפְרֶסֶת in Leviticus 11:3, this word belongs to the same פרס consonantal family and keeps the idea of splitting visible.
בְּשָׂרְךָ
besarkha
GROWS FROM
בשר
Flesh, bodily kin; the same consonants also form a verb meaning to announce good news.
The verse closes by calling the vulnerable person “your flesh,” making their need a matter of shared embodiment. The same consonants also form the verb for announcing good news; that echo places proclamation beside fleshly life without replacing the verse’s concrete acts of feeding, welcoming, and covering.
ALSO GROWS
basar: Flesh, bodily life, or kin.
בָּשָׂר
This is the noun in “thine own flesh”; it names the vulnerable person as belonging to the reader’s embodied kinship.
bisser: Announce good news.
בִּשֵּׂר
This verb shares the consonants בשר, creating a consonantal echo between flesh and announcement while the verse shows care through tangible provision.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes care visible as opening one’s provision, shelter, and covering to another’s need.
But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.THE THREAD
Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.The Hebrew word translated “deal” in Isaiah 58:7 comes from פרס, the same root used here for parting the hoof. That shared root gives the act of sharing bread its specific shape: dividing provision into portions.
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